


Wolf in the Streets, Sardine in the Sheets

by LoneSardine



Category: Disgaea (Games), Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And one mention of Etna/Flonne, And probably shouldn't be allowed near children, Fenfen is tsun- even to Val, Fenrich is super tsundere, M/M, Sardines (obviously), Super minor Killia/Seraphina, biker!Fenrich, juvenile delinquent instructor!Valvatorez, taiyaki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24542341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoneSardine/pseuds/LoneSardine
Summary: Kidnap one of the kids and kill the instructor, that was Fenrich's mission.It certainly wasn't to end up as a volunteer assistant to the former 'Street Tyrant', with a dozen kids to babysit and a whole bunch of very awkward feelings.
Relationships: Barubatoze | Valvatorez/Fenrihhi | Fenrich, Minor one-sided Valvatorez/Artina
Comments: 27
Kudos: 26





	1. Stale Taiyaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, dood. No idea where this is set in our modern world, just roll with things. Also ‘delinquent’ means what it does in our real world, not what it does in D3.
> 
> A heads-up there's a hyperlink in this chapter if you want to see what Fenrich's bike looks like, in case you're sensible and don't trust an unknown link.

Killing the engine, Fenrich swung one leg over to lean back against the side of his motorbike. Binoculars raised, he tried picking through the crowd of kids beyond the distant chain-link fence, letting out a small ‘tch’.

Every kid had some stupid, blue and white penguin-like cap on their head and most a similarly-themed hoodie, enough to making picking out his target an impossible task. And here the kid’s green hair ought to have been the easiest damn giveaway possible.

One kid’s hat and jacket were green compared to the rest, but with all the kids moving through some kind of self-defence drills there was too much motion blur to pick out any of their other details at this distance.

Tossing the cheap, stolen binoculars to the road, he flicked the ignition back on and roared away for now.

~DOOD~

The area, like most around this part of the city, was thankfully dilapidated.

Across from the group rehabilitation home’s large, fenced yard was an abandoned apartment building, only a couple of floors and easy enough to break into once night had fallen.

Squatting there the next day on an empty Rosen Queen Co. supply box as a chair, stale taiyaki to eat, Fenrich watched a typical day’s activities go by: The kids got up with the sun, cooking breakfast and hanging out laundry. Then followed some boringly long lessons all morning before everyone made their own lunch to eat, most outside at one big table. More lessons after, enough to bore Fenrich this time let alone the poor kids, until mid-afternoon when they were taken outside to learn self-defence techniques that would scare an army cadet on the stone-flagged yard. Back inside for the evening, each kid got their own food when they wanted and seemed to be having free time finally, before they were all to bed healthily early. Tedious, but helpfully simple.

The following day Fenrich watched them go through the same routine again, finally making his move when they went back inside for the evening.

Lingering beside the chain-link fence in the amber sunlight and hazy air of the city, bike ready nearby for the getaway, he watched the kids mill about in the building’s lit kitchen and main room. There were still too many in both right now, no one having gone up to their rooms or to use the bathrooms. Many seemed to gladly be taking the opportunity to slack after the day’s hard lessons.

Fenrich began looking around the length of the fence, not fancying what a tangle with the spikes along the top would do to his leather jacket or trousers. The whole stretch was solid though, the only way in the gate right by the building’s main door.

Once he could get close enough to the windows by some means he could pick out the target kid and simply wait till they were alone. Getting in and out would be easy, even if they tried to resist.

The instructor who ran the place though, still passing between the kitchen and main room fussing after the kids, he wouldn’t be alone until everyone went to bed that night if yesterday’s routine held true again. That made the second part difficult; killing him while any of the kids were around would run too great a risk of them having details to give to the police.

Perhaps if he could wait till night, do the break in and assassination without waking anyone, then grab the kid he needed and get out of there...

Fenrich took a walk along the fence, trying to scout out the upper floor’s layout as lights flicked on and off. There didn’t look enough rooms to be one per kid, more like two or three to each. That also complicated things.

Returning to the spot beside his bike, he pulled his phone out to check the time-

“What are you doing out here?”

Fenrich started just slightly, greeted by the sight of that instructor on the other side of the chain-link fence, staring right at him and none too pleased. Something was far too intimidating about the slender shortstack. “Uh...” A number of the kids were lined up at the building’s lower windows watching. Shit, they must have spotted him walking around. “I was... interested, in the place you have here,” Fenrich began, doing his best to sound polite.

His target simply raised one eyebrow, arms still folded.

It was enough to make Fenrich swallow. “What you do here, I... I came from that kind of rough background,” he kept a gruff, unruffled demeanour on top of his inner flailing. “So I was interested...”

After a moment, of all things Valvatorez’s face broke into a very pleased grin. “Ah, I see! You’re interested in volunteering to help here!”

Fenrich couldn’t help staring, utterly blind-sided, but kept a professional cool as he nodded. “Y-Yes.”

“There’s no need to be embarrassed!” Valvatorez continued cheerfully. “Why, I only wish you and I weren’t the only two to care about the poor children caught up in all the criminal activity that goes on around here.”

Glancing aside, Fenrich ran an awkward hand back through his mane of hair.

“Although, I must ask,” Having approached the opposite side of the fence between them, Valvatorez’s red eyes glinted seriously for a moment, “you aren’t affiliated with any of the gangs in the area, are you?”

Fenrich fiercely scoffed. “I would never join one of those gangs. On my life, I swore I would rather die than ever allow myself to be someone’s subordinate. I rely on no one but myself.”

Valvatorez nodded. “Excellent. One’s promises to oneself are as important as any other. And you, my friend, I can tell are as honest as you are earnest.”

“‘Friend’?”

“Ah, quite right! What should I call you, friend?”

“...Fenrich,” he supposed, studying the strange man stood before him on the other side of such flimsy-looking metal anew.

“And you may call me ‘Valvatorez’. Come round and I’ll let you in,” he said, already walking away in the direction of the gate. “Oh,” he remembered at the last moment, “you can bring your bike round too; you hardly want to leave it out on these streets unattended.”

Kicking up the stand, “No one with any sense who’s been on these streets more than five minutes would dare touch my bike,” Fenrich took the handlebars in one hand to roll the motorbike along beside him anyway.

“Hm?” Valvatorez took a careful interest, his piercing gaze flickering along through the diamonds of the fence. “Ah, would you be the so-called ‘lone wolf’ biker rumours abound about in the area? Even some of my children have tales to tell about you.”

Fenrich eyed him up in return with a steady gaze, before turning to look ahead of him again. “Just as many abound about you, Street Tyrant.”

Valvatorez chuckled. “People still pass around those old stories? How amusing.”

“What’s amusing?”

“The idea that I had more strength back then, compared to the true strength I possess now.”

Fenrich looked at the emaciated pipsqueak walking along in parallel to him, dwarfed by a massive coat so tattered and loose now it was more like a cape. “Really? The Tyrant who once defeated five gang overlords at once? You don’t look like you could take down a pet dog anymore.”

“It is true my physical condition has deteriorated considerably since those days,” Valvatorez admitted with a sigh. “But nothing can compare to the power of camaraderie I get from my charges!” He heard Fenrich scoff under his breath. “You disagree?”

“Allies are useless as soon as they’re not there for you.”

Infuriatingly, Valvatorez just smiled. “I see you are yet to experience its true power then, just as many of my charges are when they arrive. Have no fear! I will demonstrate it to you as well.” They rounded the corner of the fence, and Fenrich’s disdain was apparently still plain to see. “Doubt it if you like, but you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t recognised its potential.”

Oh, Fenrich _so_ wanted to correct him on that. But he bit on his lip with one canine instead.

“Nevertheless,” Valvatorez continued, “I do appreciate the importance of independence. Down here in the ‘netherworld’ of town it is all too easy to succumb to the allure of one of the gangs for protection, so instructing my charges in the skills necessary to look after themselves is a high priority of mine.”

Fenrich waited, hardened gaze on the cracked pavement outside the fence, as Valvatorez unlocked it on the other side, swinging it wide open to allow Fenrich’s bike to come in as well.

“You may think me unable to take down a pet dog anymore, but I could still deal with a ‘wolf’, should his behaviour require it.”

Fenrich raised an eyebrow as he turned back to the dark, pointed threat issued behind him. “Oh?” Hands on his waistband, he could easily lean forward to loom over Valvatorez with a cocky sneer.

“Harm one of my children and you will find out,” Valvatorez answered simply, utterly unfazed by the intimidation tactic as he turned away, bearing his unguarded back to Fenrich, to lock the gate again.

Straightening back up, Fenrich returned to a more aloof boredom as he waited and watched.

They didn’t head straight inside though, Valvatorez’s attention drawn to the [motorbike](https://www.avonmotorcycles.co.uk/product/sym-wolf-sb-125-cbs/) instead. Fenrich watched his gaze travelling along its sharp scoops and naked engine, choosing to lean back against the front of the seat and intercept the attention. He hadn’t intended for Valvatorez to now be staring quite lingeringly at his bared abs and chest, but that was interesting.

Pulling his gaze away, “I do hope you wear a helmet when you ride that; I wouldn’t want my charges thinking they can ignore basic traffic safety laws,” Valvatorez huffed, walking towards the building’s front door.

“Interested in having a _ride_ sometime?” Fenrich tested, and there was the tiniest stumble in the step of Valvatorez’s red and black sneakers.

“C-Come now,” he coughed politely into a closed fist, “I’ll show you around.”

Stalking forward after him, this assignment might have just gotten more complicated but Fenrich couldn’t help but smirk there might be a few perks in it as well.

~DOOD~

He really hadn’t expected the place could even be more ridiculous the more Fenrich got to know it from the inside over the next few evenings.

From the kitchen constantly sparsely stocked aside from a ridiculous amount of sardines, to orange painted gaps in the stone yard the kids told him were ‘lava’ and actually avoided like it literally was, all the way to the fact supposed-goody-two-shoes Valvatorez was actually teaching these kids how to use knives and homemade explosives...

But most of all, “Why do you dress them like penguins?” Fenrich finally couldn’t stand anymore after his third day coming by to volunteer.

“It’s undeniable that gang culture is rampant in this area,” Valvatorez answered as he took the next stack of receipts to be tallied, “but whereas others dress themselves as the likes of dragons, orcs and the undead, I hope by dressing as penguins it will encourage more harmless and affable behaviour in my prinnies.”

Smoothing back out the electricity bill he’d scrunched up in one hand, “I thought you also hated those shitty gangs corrupting these streets.”

“Oh, I do,” Valvatorez answered lightly as he took the electricity bill, puzzling briefly over its condition. “But one must appreciate why the vulnerable turn to them, for if you do that same power can be put to positive use. This case in point, children often turn to those gangs looking for that sense of family their home lives have failed to provide them; for a young person in insecure circumstances to seek such fallback is a natural and sensible instinct. I merely attempt to provide the same in a more positive form. It’s necessary to indulge in the trappings such as a distinguishing outfit so they cannot be easily tempted away by such appealing surface elements in other gangs.” He turned to Fenrich, ready for the next item.

Fenrich was sat considering his words though, before realising to sort through the pile for remaining bills from last month. “Your understanding of adolescent psychology is... formidable,” he mentioned as he handed it over finally.

“It is as much my own psychology as theirs; I was also an adolescent once, you know.”

“Why didn’t you join one of the gangs?”

“Hm?” He double-checked his calculations before adding the next on, pale hand smoothing over the sheets. “I simply had no need, I suppose, being strong enough by myself. That and I was yet to appreciate the strength allies can give one.” Before reaching for the next from Fenrich, “If I may enquire about something in return, I’m surprised you didn’t join the Celestia Police Force if you hate the gangs so much.”

“Them?” Fenrich scorned. “I value my freedom too much to get involved with that pack of self-righteous sheep who come swanning down from uptown, acting like little gods.”

Valvatorez took the final bill from him, adding it onto the bottom of the long outgoings table. “Not all its members are so bad.”

“No, the others are just corrupt.”

Valvatorez chuckled, tallying up the final column against the expected figure, nodding that they squared. “Excellent.” Leaning over slightly in his boredom, Fenrich had to wonder how such a small remaining balance could be considered ‘excellent’, but it wasn’t his place to care. “Help me file all this for when I have to do the tax returns.”

“Why do you have to do all this?” Fenrich asked as he gathered the loose sheets haphazardly. “Don’t the local council have oversight into this place?”

“They provide my basic funding,” Fenrich had seen the figure on the sheets, and that term was rather generous, “but all issues of management are left to me.”

“So no one comes by to inspect or help out?” he checked, taking the first folder of receipts and bills to shelve where indicated.

“No, but I manage sufficiently on my own.” Valvatorez turned around to grab the next file. “I do receive aid from the... the...”

Fenrich turned back, finding Valvatorez leant over and clinging to the edge of the rickety desk for support. He was trembling, and it was hard to tell if he let himself fall down to the floor by the desk or simply collapsed. The sound of laboured breathing meant he was still conscious, but that was about the extent of good signs.

Realising how strange it would seem to simply stand over another person collapsed on the floor like this, “‘Strong enough by yourself’?” Fenrich repeated in friendly mock as he crouched down to help lift the man up.

“Ah-h, not too quickly. J-Just into the...” Valvatorez asked, using the assistance to seat himself back on his chair, hunched over with his head down by his knees.

His skin, which had been cold enough before when they’d once brushed hands, had left clammy sweat all over Fenrich’s fingers and gloves with just a momentary touch. Fenrich watched him trying to struggle out of the over-sized coat he wore all the time, even inside, before gently helping. The white shirt underneath was already soaked through in places with the same clammy sweat. “Are you going to faint?”

“I’ll b-be better directly,” Valvatorez tried to reassure him in voice of shaky optimism. The back of Fenrich’s knuckles against Valvatorez’s forehead could feel him still trembling all over though. “J-Just...” He took Fenrich’s hand in both of his, holding tightly onto it.

His fingers were too thin for the length they were, the same as every other part of that small body that was far too slight and pale. This wasn’t the Valvatorez of the old street legends. “You’re ill, aren’t you?”

Valvatorez exhaled, thumbs smoothing over Fenrich’s hand through the worn leather. “Yes... It was what made me realise how alone I was, that I may not have needed anyone with my strength but that I had always wanted to know what it was like to have allies, just once...” His breathing was still heavy but he had calmed down into small quivers now, a sense of calm coming over him at least. “They don’t know if I’ll ever recover. Normally I can manage but lately I suppose I may have overworked myself. I never like to turn a child away, but twelve is rather a lot to manage alone.” Valvatorez patted Fenrich’s hand now, making the effort to look up at him. “That’s why it really was perfect timing, you coming along, Fenrich. I do hope you’ll stay.”

Those honest, red eyes were too naive. With slightly flushing cheeks, Fenrich looked away, then growled slightly when Valvatorez dared laugh at him.

“Perhaps you would like to come by for the full day tomorrow, if you aren’t busy?”

“...If you want,” Fenrich accepted.

“Wonderful! Be here by 8am at the latest.”

“I’m not one of your damn prinnies you can order around,” Fenrich snapped lightly.

“Feel free to use our facilities to prepare meals for yourself as well, although as I have yet to inform the council about you aren’t allowed in our food budget so you’ll have to bring your own supplies.”

“How generous...”

“And do that jacket up for once when you leave tonight; I shan’t have you catching a cold, do you hear?”

“Yes, Lord Valvatorez,” Fenrich mocked, pulling his hand free and pushing the other man backwards to sit up in his chair now he was obviously feeling back to his usual self.

“You really ought to take better care of yourself, Fenrich,” he said honestly.

Snatching up the rest of the files that had never gotten shelved, “I don’t need to hear that from you,” Fenrich began putting them away in their correct places himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, dood, enough Val/Fen set-up, let's start meeting some kids!


	2. Meat Taiyaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When your new bf has 12 kids you gotta play nice with if you want some of that flat, little ass (in order to murder its owner, of course)

“Come now, Fenrich – You’ve been volunteering here for days and I doubt you could tell me a single child’s name!” Valvatorez enthused, literally dragging the other man by the wrist towards the downstairs classroom ready for morning lessons.

“That’s because I don’t even like...” he trailed off into gritted teeth, pretending instead, “meeting new people.”

“Yes, I could tell your skills when it comes to making new friends are exceptionally poor,” Fenrich frowned at the back of Valvatorez’s head, but there was probably no point calling the airhead out on his own sporadic lack of tact, “but fear not! I shall assist you.”

Fenrich was going to want to kill somebody by the end of this, maybe himself, he could tell already.

“Now, this morning’s lesson is Science,” Valvatorez continued. “Lately I’ve been attempting to teach the workings of various common mechanical and electrical objects my charges will encounter. Today’s lesson is on motors.” He briefly held up one small one from his pocket, the kind you might find if you took apart a desk fan or similar. “May I presume you have a basic understanding of such things from your motorbike?”

“Yeah, I’ve fixed it myself a few times.”

“Good. How is your familiarity with video games?”

Fenrich supposed he was just going to have to get used to rolling with these non-sequiters. “I’ve played some, when I could get my hands on them.”

“Excellent. In that case I know what you can help me with.” They reached the closed classroom door, pausing outside first as Valvatorez turned around to him. “Ten of my charges are fine in lessons, far from perfect in many ways perhaps, but nothing extraordinary for juvenile delinquents and the children of criminals. But I would like you to help me with Fuka and Desco.” Fenrich refrained from nodding just yet. “The two are well-behaved but I struggle to ever get them to actually engage with my classes due to their circumstances, at least without giving them my sole attention which is impossible without the rest getting up to no good.”

“So I just need to sit with the two of them and make sure they pay attention?” That sounded easy; his fist was all ready to go.

“Ahh... You may find it a bit more difficult than that,” Valvatorez cautioned, but then threw open the classroom door to walk in. “Class is now in session! To your seats, everyone!”

Fenrich slunk in behind him, watching most of the kids in the room trying to finish jokes and various misbehaviours as they scrambled into seats at two-person tables. Even once they were in their chair most were leaning back on the back legs, chewing gum or doodling on the table surface in full view of the two adults.

“Before we begin today,” Valvatorez continued, “allow me to introduce someone who will be assisting me in looking after you from now on.” He had to gesture quite insistently before Fenrich exhaled, shoved his hands on his waistband and shuffled over with his disdainful gaze on one of the walls. “You may have seen him around in the evenings lately getting to know the place and from now he will be here full-time. This is Fenrich, and he has very kindly volunteered to help you all from the goodness in his heart.”

Most of the kids looked as dubious of that as Fenrich was himself.

“Now, today’s class will be on motors. Everyone, push your desks together and gather round, please,” Valvatorez instructed.

As the scraping of table and chair legs across the old, well-worn floor began, Fenrich followed as gestured to the one table not complying. There sat two girls, the older dressed like the other prinny kids but staring out the window daydreaming, the younger with only the prinny hat intently slouched forward and playing something on a handheld-mode Nintendo Switch right in full view of Valvatorez.

“Desco!” she was unsurprisingly scolded.

“Oh, sorry!” The kid sat back and upright with better posture, eyes not leaving the screen for a second.

“Fuka,” he called next, trying to drag her attention back.

“This is pointless, Valzy. Dad’ll teach us this way better than you or your new minion ever could once he stops being so caught up in his work and comes to pick us up,” she responded, turning forward at least to regard him with the same bored expression.

“Well then, let’s save him a little time and lay the groundwork today. How about that?” Valvatorez suggested, waiting until he received a shrug that looked like acceptance. It was at that point Fenrich felt himself dragged back a step, Valvatorez leaning in to his ear. “Fuka believes their father will come to collect them any day now. Simply play along if she brings it up.”

“He’s not?” Fenrich could easily guess.

“He’s in prison currently for manslaughter after an experiment of his accidently killed their mother, Desco’s twin sister and nearly killed these two as well. Fuka believes the whole thing was just a dream, while Desco uses video games to escape reality whenever she starts thinking about it. You’ll be able to engage Desco in the real world if you make the activity feel enough like a video game, and once Desco is engaged with something Fuka will join in as well.”

Fenrich stared at him for a moment, then at the two girls, but by the time he turned back to say something Valvatorez had already walked off to deal with the other kids, leaving Fenrich to his fate.

Sighing hard, he glanced around and grabbed a nearby chair to place in front of their desk which he dropped himself into.

The delusional older sister stared at him, while the younger continued gaming.

Fenrich stared back with a blank frown and folded arms, considering the two.

“Hey, Fenfen,” Delusions suddenly started.

“You better not be talking to me,” he said, bearing a canine.

“‘Course I am,” she continued, no idea how close she was to getting thrown through a window. “How come you don’t wear a shirt?”

“Because I don’t need to,” he answered simply.

“Really? But what if you come off that bike you ride in on, or if you get in a fight?”

“Desco knows what it is, Big Sis!” Game-Addicted cut in without taking her attention off her game. “This is a rare instance of male Chainmail Bikini syndrome!”

“What,” Fenrich said incredulously flatly.

Delusions was assessing him with a new, rather off-putting interest and smirk, while her little sister continued, “Normally it’s female armour that shows off more skin as it gets stronger, but Mr. Fenfen’s jacket must be a rare case of strong and sexy male armour!”

“What,” was all Fenrich could think to repeat, growling and rubbing his head now he’d managed to get a headache from these two already. “Shut your mouths. I’ll teach you how a motor works-”

“Can we go see your bike?” Delusions interrupted excitably.

“Touch my bike and I’ll kill you.”

“What kind of bike is it?” she persisted.

Fenrich opened his mouth to see if a more creative threat would drive his answer home- “A wonderful idea, Fenrich!” Valvatorez appeared at his side at that moment of all moments though. “Hands-on experience is truly the best way for them to learn.”

Fenrich glanced aside, lips twitching at his bad luck, before muttering a strained, “Right.” Delusions was already grinning a grin he wanted to punch round to the back of her face. The other one though, “You.” Game-Addicted twitched the tiniest amount in recognition she had heard him. “...Do you want come see the stats of my bike?” he tried, tensing up from the unnatural words.

Her thumbs actually paused, pressing no more buttons. “What CC is it?”

Mildly surprised to get something intelligent out of her, “125,” he answered.

She seemed to be thinking about it, “...That’s pretty fast,” then actually pressed the power button on the Switch’s top side, setting down the sleeping handheld on the desk. “Desco wants to see its stats.”

Fenrich gritted his teeth, but glancing up Valvatorez looked so deeply proud and pleased. “Get moving then,” Fenrich ordered, getting up from his own seat to head to the door.

“All right!” Delusions’ chair scraped backwards on the floor as she followed, Game-Addicted’s smaller footsteps in tow.

Ignoring the fuss of, “Why do they get to leave the classroom?” left behind in their wake, Fenrich led the way without looking back. The girls quickly rushed to catch up with him, Delusions giggling.

“So you _like_ Valzy, huh?” she asked teasingly.

“What?”

“You weren’t going to show us your bike, but as soon as Valzy said it was a good idea you agreed – You wanted him to think you’re a good helper and make him like you.”

“That’s not why I agreed,” Fenrich spat back.

“Oh? Then why did you change your mind?”

He furrowed his brow, mouth pressed tight closed as well. Eventually, after too long a delay, he tried, “Because he’s in charge here.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Delusions said without an ounce of belief as they exited the front door.

All Fenrich could do was growl to himself and try to ignore Game-Addicted coming up on his other side as well. “Desco knows what you need to do! You have to give him a favourite gift every day to increase his LP and select the right conversation choices, then you’ll get to have a date event with him.”

“I’m not- I don’t like him like that,” he snarled, actually glad to get to where his bike was parked out front.

“You totally do,” Delusions insisted. “You want some of that flat, little ass.”

“No!”

“Oh, so you want to bottom instead?” she guessed with a big grin, her sister giggling away naughtily.

“Shut your mouth before I throw you at the fence so hard it rips you to shreds like a cheese grater,” Fenrich threatened, using his height to loom over her.

She ignored him with a ridiculous level of stubborn naivety, ducking past to start putting her hands all over the body of his bike.

“What part of ‘Touch my bike and I’ll kill you’ don’t you remember?” he barked, trying to grab her hands to force them away.

She ducked away though towards the seat part. “This is really cool bike...”

“Desco likes the wheels!” At least the smaller one had the sense to simply crouch and look at the bike without touching.

“Get your hands off it and I’ll show you-”

“Desco, give me a hand getting on,” Delusions said, both hands on the seat and trying unsuccessfully to lift herself on.

“Hey! Don’t you dare-!”

“Up you go, Big Sis!” The little one helped push her up enough to swing a leg over the seat. Her legs dangled, flailing as they tried to find something to rest comfortably on, and her arms reaching out could only just touch the handlebars. Shifting herself forward to the very front of the seat so she could just about get a grip on the right parts, the space she left behind her, “Desco too!” was soon occupied by Game-Addicted scrambling up using her big sister’s clothing to help pull herself.

“Ready, Desco?” Delusions asked, trying to mess with the handlebars and then looking around for the bike’s ignition.

“Desco will be your Double Dash partner! Leave throwing the Banana Skins and Koopa Shells to Desco!”

Fenrich would have given up if his precious bike wasn’t involved in all this. “Get off now. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, stop worrying, Fenfen,” Delusions waved a hand dismissively at him, trying to lean the bike over which couldn’t have been good for the stand. “I know what I’m- Shit!” She then tried to lean over too quickly the other way, sending them both and the bike crashing to the ground.

“Damn it!” Fenrich got involved only to pull his bike out of the mess, setting it back up and crouching to inspect it for damage. “I told you not to mess around!”

All he got back was a weak sniffling noise.

Since there appeared to be no damage to the bike, any injuries cushioned by the kids it had fallen over on, Fenrich sighed and stood back up to go inspect them.

Game-Addicted was biting on her lip, one hand scuffed up plus gravel and dirt all over her full-body purple and grey clothes. Delusions meanwhile seemed to have completely zoned out even as blood ran down the length of her leg from a bruised cut and one arm protectively curled in her lap.

These damn kids... “Where’s the first aid kit?” Fenrich asked.

Game-Addicted sniffled up a particularly strong sniffle, and said, “Its spawn point’s in the k-kitchen.”

“Come on.” He turned to go, but soon realised neither was following him. “...You need to restore your lost HP,” he tried, and Game-Addicted seemed to register that, climbing to her feet.

“Big Sis?” Game-Addicted tried before she would go anywhere though. “You need to restore your HP too, Big Sis.” Even her words didn’t seem to register with Delusions, that lost gaze still staring into space near the spot they’d fallen off from.

Fenrich scratched at his scalp, exhaling hard. Walking back towards her, “Hey.” No response. “You don’t want your father to see you looking like this when he turns up, do you? Clean yourself up.”

Delusions’ head finally twitched up slightly, then her gaze moved as well towards Fenrich’s legs even though she never looked up at him. Silently, she climbed to her feet and started walking back towards the building with her face down.

No wonder Valvatorez needed extra help with these kids; now he was the one having to deal with them, Fenrich really wanted to meet and punch the adults who’d messed them up this bad.

~DOOD~

“All right, children!” Valvatorez called over the sunny, noisy yard that afternoon. “It’s self-defence time!” That seemed to gather a lot of the scattered attention, the kids all drifting back from where they’d been chatting to throng around their instructor. “Today we’ll be practising knife techniques,” He picked up a box of blunt crayons at this point to hold up, “so everyone take a crayon. If I see any real knives there _will_ be punishments!”

The kids all shuffled up to take a crayon, some scuffling over the silliness of what colour they got even, before they settled back into a messy group. Delusions and Game-Addicted were sat out watching, either because of their injuries earlier or perhaps they always did.

“Fenrich?” Valvatorez also offered the box to him.

Fenrich huffed derisively. “I don’t rely on weapons. Your own body is the only thing you can always count on having to hand.”

“We teach that as well, but it doesn’t hurt to know how to use one,” he replied. “Neither does it hurt to know how someone else may use one against you,” he further observed, which Fenrich conceded with a small nod. The box was set down, Valvatorez turning to the group again. “Now, we’ll focus on evasion techniques today, but also how to counter-attack should the opportunity arise. Fenrich, would you mind being my demonstration partner?”

He nodded, almost grinning at the thought of sizing the Street Tyrant Valvatorez up in action, even in this far-fallen state, not to mention this was an excellent opportunity to assess his target; he was only too eager to get into position.

“Now, many of the opponents you would be facing while at your age will have a size advantage over you as Fenrich does over me,” Valvatorez began, light blue crayon waggling in his hand. “But size can lead to over-confidence, and is never a substitute for proper technique!” Fenrich glanced aside as the speech continued in this didactic vein, gaze falling on Delusions and the rather lewd hand gesture she made which suggested her interpretation was far less about crayons and far more about genitalia. He rolled his eyes away for the sake of his sanity. “Now Fenrich,” Valvatorez’s voice drew him back again, “are you ready?”

Though he’d missed any potential explanation of what was coming, Fenrich dropped into combat position ready, cracking his knuckles and giving a cocky grunt.

“Very well.” The man looked utterly ridiculous assuming a sword-wielding stance with a light blue wax crayon. “If you would attack me, please.”

This was going to be too easy.

Energy coiled in Fenrich’s limbs, turning to a tension, before he sprang forth, one foot down to pivot his full weight on for a vicious hook punch.

His whole follow-through connected with nothing but air though. Where Valvatorez had been stood before his vision turned to motion blur was empty, and his instincts screamed to get away from what was suddenly to his left. He tried, even ready to pull up a guard, but before any of that something jammed hard and precise into the patch of soft flesh above the back of his left hip. A tingling jerk shot through that entire leg, the spasm taking its strength out from under him and sending him crashing to the stone floor.

Valvatorez stood above him with his gaze on their audience, that light blue crayon reversed in his grip and slightly crushed at the tip from where it had been forced into Fenrich’s skin. “Now that was the technique at full speed and with a counter-attack. We’ll perform it again at a slower speed for you.”

Fenrich didn’t need any instruction to get back to his feet and retake his previous position.

Lesson be damned, when Valvatorez nodded he coiled and then sprang forth with the same speed again. This time he contorted into a left palm-strike, one barely grabbed around the wrist in time to deflect its force safely out to one side. Then Fenrich’s other foot came down, riding the expected deflection to deliver a second palm-strike with his right and full weight behind it.

The wax crayon clattered on the stone floor, a cold and slender hand having halted the full force of Fenrich’s palm-strike head-on.

Their clasped hands eclipsed one of Valvatorez’s eyes, but the red of the other was a sharp slit that pierced so deeply through Fenrich’s intentions he felt a cold sweat flush his skin beneath his jacket. “As you can see, these moves do not always go as planned.” In the instant Valvatorez turned to the watching children a smile was already on his face again. “I was slow that time, which is why Fenrich was able to strike me.” He was calling that complete block a ‘strike’ on him?! “I’m afraid you’ll have to move a little slower, Fenrich,” Valvatorez turned back to him. “I don’t have the speed I once did.”

Fenrich gladly pulled his fists away from that cold grip, stumbling back. Numbly, he nodded and took a more gentle, demonstration stance, moving at the speed Valvatorez wanted.

His mind was numb, whirring.

What man possessed that kind of speed even at the fullest strength? It couldn’t even have been speed; the human body had hard, physical limits one couldn’t surpass. Only the instincts of the mind were sharper, the ability to read an opponent.

If Valvatorez had known that second attack was coming...

The rest of the demonstration continued properly without incident. Once Valvatorez felt the kids should have been able to pick it up, he split the ten active participants into five pairs to train, rotating through the groups so every kid also had a turn being personally tested by him.

Fenrich sat by for that part, far away from where Delusions and Game-Addicted were off chatting in their own little world thankfully. Taking one of the small packages out of his jacket pocket, he unwrapped the paper around the taiyaki inside, biting through to the slightly mushy meat at the centre as he watched.

Valvatorez was gentle and slow with the kids, not easy on them but nonetheless they were at no risk of harm when being tested by him. None of them had the slightest chance of doing him any harm either, their crayons jabbing leaving a spectrum of small smears all over his black coat but never causing him to more than chuckle and praise their ability.

What gave him that strength still? The man had nearly keeled over this very lunchtime before he got a chance to eat but now here he was with the strength and speed of a demon. It didn’t make-

“Hey you!” A rude and bratty voice demanded. “Give me some of that!”

“No,” Fenrich said even before turning to a purple-haired shrimp of a prinny that had come over to him.

“What did you say?!”

“Laharl.” The brat’s training partner came over too, gothy make-up and his voice calm to the point of sounding bored. “We should keep training. It’s important to be able to protect yourself.”

“No way! This guy’s eating and I want some!” Brat-face said.

“Eating?” Bored Edgelord almost sounded like he had the slightest hint of interest for once. “What are you eating?”

“Taiyaki,” Fenrich muttered between bites.

“That doesn’t look like a normal adzuki bean paste filling,” Bored Edgelord observed, leaning in. “What kind of meat is that?”

Fenrich observed what was left in the tail of this taiyaki himself, frowning. “I can’t remember.” It could be a combination of chicken and snake meat for all he knew.

While that kid only seemed to grow more curious, “Ahh, damn it! I want some meat!” Brat-face complained. “Meat other than sardines at least!”

“‘Sardines’?” Fenrich questioned, remembering the ridiculous stocks in the kitchen.

“Val eats them to help his condition,” Bored Edgelord explained, readjusting his prinny hat. “He makes us eat them too, since he says they’re good for us.”

Fenrich watched Valvatorez evading side-to-side quickly as he sparred with a sadistic pair of red pigtails. “What condition?”

“I don’t know what it’s called. He ought to be having regular blood transfusions for it, but he refuses because he says other people need the blood more-”

“This is so boring!” Brat-face complained. “Are you going to give us some food, old man, or do we have to beat you up for it?”

Fenrich twitched slightly, “...‘Old man’?” rising from his seat and tossing his paper wrapper to the ground. “Oh, I’ll give you something to fill that big mouth of yours, whelp!”

~DOOD~

Valvatorez hadn’t looked totally convinced the injuries Brat-face ended up with were from self-defence training, but he couldn’t prove it was Fenrich either.

Once they were done with lessons for the day, most of the kids were pretty lazy about getting their evening meal and would simply sit around complaining about being hungry for an hour or two before finally making it. Fenrich therefore opted to use the facilities early, before they got in and made a mess he would have to help clean up.

One kid did come in early, but the little punk kept over on the opposite side so Fenrich could tolerate it.

A little time later, “Hey, bro,” a hand tugged on his sleeve’s elbow. “Can you check my plate?” Since Fenrich could only stare blankly at the kid who’d come over to bother him, “Val insists on checking our food before we eat it. This is fine, right?”

He looked down, seeing a plate of red sauce all over a pile of indistinguishable chunks on slices of plain bread. “Looks fine.” There wasn’t mould on it or anything.

“Thanks, bro!” Little Punk said with a goofy grin, speeding away with a flick of his loose, silver ponytail beneath his prinny hat – Well, the kid had semi-decent taste in hair at least.

Ripping open the noodle packet with his bare hands, just as he was about to tip them in- “Zeroken! Show me your plate!” Fenrich paused.

Valvatorez was stood in the doorway, Little Punk caught and looking frightful before those scowling folded arms. “Fenrich said it was okay!”

“I’m surprised when you can barely even tell what’s under all this ketchup – It looks like nothing more than chicken nuggets and chips on white bread!”

“I put some cheese on it too!”

“There’s not a single vegetable on that plate!” Valvatorez shouted, walking a few steps forward to really loom over the kid.

“There’s a veg!”

“Chips don’t count as a vegetable, Zeroken!”

“I meant the ketchup! That’s why I put so much on!”

“That counts even less!” He tutted, taking the plate from Little Punk’s hands with no sympathy for his wailing. “Make a full plate of sardines and vegetables – Including carrots! – and we’ll mix half of that with half of this... _nutritional abomination_ to make a proper meal for both you and Desco.”

“Yay! Desco gets to recover her HP and SP for free!” came in from the main room.

“Do I have to have carrots...?” Little Punk whined.

“Yes, you must! And no TV for you tonight!” Valvatorez turned back briefly to shout into the main room, “Zeroken is not allowed to watch any TV or video games tonight, everyone!” which was met with a half-hearted acknowledgement. “Now, chop-chop. The quicker you begin the quicker you can eat,” he told Little Punk.

The kid slunk away, whimpering to himself, back to the other side of the kitchen.

Valvatorez meanwhile strode up to Fenrich’s side, the offending plate still brandished in his hand as he presented it to Fenrich again. “Do you call this a nutritious meal, Fenrich?”

“It’d keep him alive,” Fenrich answered, ignoring the stupid huff Valvatorez appeared to be in to return to his own meal preparation. “The calories would last him longer on the street than vegetables would.”

“He isn’t on the street however.” Tutting, he set the plate down for now and had to physically push its insulting contents far away from him. “And what are you eating tonight?”

“Ramen.” Fenrich stirred the noodle block he’d dropped in, pulling the tangled lump apart in the broth. “That’s allowed, yes?”

Valvatorez considered. “What toppings are you having?”

Fenrich nodded him towards what he’d been preparing while Little Punk cooked, the slices of boiled egg and green onion on the side. “There’s a veg,” he took a little sardonic joy in mocking.

“Barely enough of one.”

“You should try eating more too, it might help you clear that stick out of your ass,” Fenrich sassed him, reaching for the black pepper and salt that Valvatorez could deal with him using from the kitchen’s supplies.

A cold hand clamped down on his before he could add any of the salt. “You may think me a fusspot,” Valvatorez pulled the grinder from him, setting aside where Fenrich would have to go through him to now reach it, “and that I am far too strict with my charges, but one day these children will need to survive without me, Fenrich.” Those sharp, red eyes were focused firmly on his, waiting for Fenrich to try and challenge them. “Not everyone is as tough as you and I. And we both know it’s a case of survival of the fittest out on those streets.”

Fenrich did try to stare him down, before looking away to where Little Punk was trying to peel sticks of carrot without taking his fingers off, having obviously forgotten to peel first and cut after. Valvatorez’s gaze held firm when he returned, and Fenrich sighed. “I see your point.” Though the firmness stayed, Valvatorez now smiled. “Why do you care so much about them?”

“Why?” The question actually surprised him into thoughtful silence for a moment. “Because they’re my charges, I suppose.” Fenrich made a snort of laughter at the rather cyclical logic. “I don’t accept children here whom I don’t believe have the potential to excel in the environment I provide. Though many are small and weak when they first arrive I can tell when great power lies within, just like sardines!”

Fenrich actually jerked slightly at the sudden and impassioned non-sequiter that Valvatorez even threw his coat out in a flourish to emphasise. “I’ve heard of your... passion for fish.”

“Not just any old fish, only sardines! Although actually there are many different species that are referred to as ‘sardines’ depending on the language-”

“It’s not enough I have to eat the damn things tonight,” came in a whine from across the kitchen, “I have to listen to one of Val’s lectures about them too?!”

“Get back to work, Zeroken!” Valvatorez snapped, huffing to have been interrupted. When he saw that small smirk playing across Fenrich’s face, “What about you? Do you also fail to recognise the incredible potential of sardines, friend?”

“I prefer taiyaki myself,” Fenrich stuck to a simple answer.

“‘Taiyaki’? I haven’t heard of this.” Valvatorez moved closer, intrigued. “‘Tai’ is Japanese for ‘sea bream’. Are they some sort of fish?”

Poisoning, that was an avenue of assassination he hadn’t considered but would well suit this mission actually. “They’re filled batter pastries shaped like fish. They’re cheap, nutritious and versatile, an ideal food.”

“As are sardines! Even more so than your _taiyaki_ ,” he scorned, and Fenrich honestly wouldn’t have been surprised to be slapped with a glove and challenged to a duel.

The thought of fighting Valvatorez... After enough of a moment had passed to change the subject, “Earlier...” Fenrich brought up, “when I... attacked you...” He wasn’t quite sure how to continue.

“Ah, that. I wasn’t harmed, don’t worry,” Valvatorez said, and Fenrich really wasn’t sure what to say to that ludicrously unnecessary reassurance. “I was quite glad that you came at me like that the second time, actually,” he continued. “After your first attack I’ll confess I was interested to see your full strength.”

“I wouldn’t say that was my _full_ strength,” Fenrich felt a need to boast.

“Oh?” Valvatorez enquired in a tone Fenrich really liked. “Then you’ll have to show me sometime, the power of a body fuelled by _inferior, pastry_ _fish_.”

Fenrich turned off the cooker knob a little too hard, “I’ll show you then,” leaning in over Valvatorez.

Valvatorez actually leaned up, pressing his forehead to Fenrich’s and setting sparks flying. “And I’ll show you the power of sardines.”

“Hey, everyone!” An irritating voice broke in from the kitchen doorway. “Valzy’s fighting with his boyfriend!”

They broke apart just before the stampede of kids crammed themself into the door frame to peer in, following Delusions’ call.

“Quiet your mouth, bitch! Lest I have to come do it for you!” Fenrich threatened.

“Lass,” Valvatorez wanted to set straight, “Fenrich and I are not in any way ‘boyfriends’,” he scorned the very term.

“I _knew_ something was going on,” Sadistic Pigtails claimed.

“Ohohohoho! They try so hard to deny it, isn’t it adorable?” Princess Pink Slut said.

“It’s so obvious even Usalia can see it, plip,” Small & Yellow added.

“Desco can’t see it – She’s too short!”

“I mean, I didn’t want to say anything,” Little Punk spoke up from across the kitchen, “but it was getting _pretty_ gay in here, guys.”

“I will end each and every one of you!” Fenrich all but roared in warning, ignoring the laughter as he served up as quickly as possible. Valvatorez was trying to quieten them back down but Fenrich opted simply to head for the back door of the kitchen and let himself out into the yard, shutting the door and all that noise in behind him.

He sat alone on the end of one of the benches beside the long table, big enough for the entire family here. The evening was growing cool, streets heavy with the noise of people heading back to their homes, while he sat by himself in the yard with his bowl of ramen.

When the back door opened he turned with a growl, but it was only Valvatorez who shut the door behind him. “I apologise. At times the children can be a bit...”

“Moronic?”

“Rambunctious,” he chose. “Many are at that age where they joke about the things they are yet to understand themselves.”

“Isn’t that every age with children?”

“Well,” Valvatorez chuckled slightly, hoping it was okay to take the seat opposite Fenrich. “If you don’t mind me saying, your desire to volunteer here intrigues me considering your manner towards the children.”

Shit. “I know,” Fenrich acknowledged. “I’m just... not good with kids, even when I care about them.”

“Don’t worry, I can tell you do care, rough as your way of expressing it is,” Valvatorez actually said. “I was uncertain how to treat them myself when I first started. To this day, I still wonder why they’re all so fond of me.”

“It’s because you treat them like adults. That and you’re honest with them,” Fenrich answered. “We... At home we were treated like most kids are, like useless nuisances...” he added in a mutter.

“‘We’?”

“My siblings.”

“You come from a large family?” Valvatorez leant in, enthralled with the idea.

“‘Family’ isn’t the word,” Fenrich scoffed. “My mother didn’t use protection with her _clients_. She tried to be a mother at first, with the first few like me, but later she just abandoned them as soon as they were born, those she didn’t give away as drug debt repayment to the gangs.”

He stabbed at his ramen, keeping his eyes on it alone. “...My word, that’s too awful for words, Fenrich.”

“She tried to sell me too a couple of times. It’s why I got out of there as soon as I could.”

“I... I’m not surprised.” Chin resting against one palm, Valvatorez’s gaze drifted off far away. “Perhaps it was a kindness after all to have no one...”

“I certainly prefer it that way now,” Fenrich finished, focusing solely on his ramen.

After a moment Valvatorez came up with the excuse, “I suppose I should go check on the children,” leaving Fenrich be as he wanted. He paused though, before walking away entirely. “A weaker heart than yours would have fallen to evil or despair. I’m glad you have such a strong heart, my friend.”

The noodles slowly slid down Fenrich’s chopsticks as the footsteps left. He simply stared at them, making sure not to catch his own reflection in the murky broth.

~DOOD~

“Any luck?” was asked impatiently.

“I’ve made progress,” Fenrich answered, adjusting the phone by his ear in one hand as the other tried to turn a page in the textbook to read for tomorrow’s morning lessons. “Valvatorez keeps a very close eyes on his charges, as you said.”

“Progress alone won’t get you paid.”

Fenrich scowled. “He’s taken me on as a volunteer to help with the kids; I’ll have plenty of opportunity to strike, when the time is right. I’ll stay on after to cover our tracks, then when the place gets shut down without Valvatorez there we can both wash our hands of this. Committing both a murder and a kidnapping without drawing attention isn’t exactly an easy job.”

“Can you do it?”

“Of course I can,” he scorned, looking up as the single, naked light bulb in the room began to flicker. “I haven’t had a chance to speak with your son yet to see if I can get him to come willingly, by the way.”

“Hmm... Perhaps best you not even bother. Valvatorez has brainwashed the lad, don’t listen to a word he says. And do follow him if he ever goes out anywhere; the boy’s fallen into bad company-”

“I don’t care what happened between the two of you, Carter, so long as I’m getting paid.”

“In that case remember you only have until the end of the month,” he said sharply, beating Fenrich to hanging up.

Fenrich sighed, “Pompous bastard,” throwing the phone down on his mat-and-blanket bed. Pulling his jacket tighter around him as the rain pattered down on the uninsulated roof of the single room, he returned to the dog-eared textbook and the silence of being alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fenrich's backstory is what I headcanon for him in the canon of the game roughly, that he comes from a very low place in the werewolf hierarchy hence his desire for power and money that he never had growing up and his trust issues/inability to communicate well emotionally. 
> 
> So why taiyaki? Because isn’t it weird we know so much about Valvatorez’s favourite food but none from the other characters? I want to know what Fenrich’s obsessive favourite is! But in the absence of a canon answer, taiyaki seemed an amusing parallel to Val’s love for real fish.
> 
> And yeah, Val's 'prinnies' are most of the younger characters from the Disgaea games all forced into Fuka-style unprinny clothes. I’ll leave you to imagine what that looks like for yourself.


	3. Spinach Taiyaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also known as the chapter where some plot starts happening again.

Fenrich rode out in the persistent rain, everything focused on the road ahead as he cut through the streets and early morning traffic.

With his recently-gifted key he opened the gate to let himself into the group home’s silent yard, locking it behind him before pulling his bike right up to the entrance. Under the shelter of the large porch, he took the time to run a cloth over the seat and mechanics carefully, “Keep out of the rain here today, and don’t let the damp get in your connections this time,” murmuring to it.

Inside he threw the wet cloth over the nearest radiator and kicked off his boots under it, taking a deep breath at the level of noise already in progress at 8am in the morning. Valvatorez still managed to hear his arrival over it somehow as always, coming out to greet him cheerfully- “Halt!”

Fenrich stopped, confused he’d only been allowed about five steps into the place for some reason today.

“Fenrich! You’re soaking wet!” Valvatorez said, cheer turning to horror in a second.

After a pause for something that should have been quite obvious, “It’s raining.”

“Riding a motorcycle in inclement weather is incredibly dangerous! Not to mention you’ll catch a cold!”

“And especially not to mention the floor I just finished cleaning,” one of the prinnies walking by with a floor brush mentioned, the one with the green prinny clothes. “Don’t you dare drip all over it!”

“Quite right, Kurtis. And an excellent job you did!” Valvatorez commended, causing the prinny to preen with slight smugness. “Fenrich, go upstairs and clean yourself up in one of the bathrooms!” he instructed.

Fenrich regarded the stairs he’d been avoiding as far as possible so far with disdain, corner of his mouth wrinkling just at the thought of, “I don’t want to dirty one of their bathrooms,” he put in the faux-kindest way he could.

“Very well, use mine. I’ll show you where it is.” Valvatorez walked on to lead the way.

Fenrich went to follow, but couldn’t help a lingering glance at the prinny walking away into the main room, raising an eyebrow at the green hair spikily poking out from under the identical green of his hat. The kid kept to himself, almost impossible to find normally, but if the rain kept everyone in today...

His long legs took the stairs two at a time to catch up to Valvatorez before his dallying was noticed, following along the plain upper hallway past the hive of bedrooms to the one a little set apart, well-positioned for seeing almost every other doorway of the upstairs he noted.

Valvatorez’s bedroom was painfully stark and empty, the black wooden furniture and bedding just about the only thing of note in the otherwise utterly practical room. It had its own en suite, even if tiny and equally spartan, that he was led into. Standing up on tip-toes to reach into the room’s one cupboard, Valvatorez tossed a spare towel to Fenrich before sighing as he assessed it really wasn’t going to be enough. “I think I have a spare hairdryer somewhere...” he busied back into the bedroom, leaving Fenrich to wipe off what he could be bothered to with the towel. “Why won’t you take better care of yourself, Fenrich?” he asked, returning with a simple hairdryer in-hand he plugged in and aimed at Fenrich.

Fenrich leant away on instinct, reaching out to take it himself and dry his mane of hair. The thing was so weak it was quiet enough to answer, “I’m fine. You’re the only one who fusses about these things.”

Valvatorez sighed. “You’re not used to anyone caring about you, are you? Even yourself. That’s where you and I differ, I suppose.”

Fenrich paused, eyeing up the unusual defeatism. “I...” He pressed his lips back together, not actually sure how to answer that, or if he wanted to admit the answer perhaps.

“I don’t suppose your mother ever did things like this for you.” Valvatorez took up the discarded towel, trying to dry Fenrich’s jacket.

He jerked away too strongly however. “Don’t mention her. I didn’t tell you that so you could...” He hissed, clicking his teeth shut.

Still frozen in his flinch away, “I won’t again. I apologise,” Valvatorez said, holding out the towel for when Fenrich was ready for it himself.

When it was left as simply as that, Fenrich’s hackles soon softened back down enough even to mutter, “Sorry,” as he finished drying and fluffing his hair. “I had to get here somehow this morning,” he excused.

“I suppose one can’t really use an umbrella on a motorbike,” Valvatorez mused in better humour. “Where do you live?”

“It’s about twenty minutes ride from here.”

“Twenty minutes? The direction you always set off in... That would mean you live in the warehouse complex.” Fenrich cursed himself for turning away too quickly from those astute red eyes. “Fenrich?”

“There’s a security guard hut there. It has water and electricity,” he answered.

“Are you living there legally?”

The worst thing was Valvatorez had taken that tone he did with the kids for the question, that far too knowing and righteous one.

The lack of answer said enough. “You’re squatting.”

“I don’t want to waste money on rent if I don’t have to,” Fenrich defended, growing prickly again as he snatched the towel back.

Valvatorez sighed, crossing his arms in front of him to place one hand in front of his face. “You should have said something. We have room here for you.”

“I’m fine. I wouldn’t want to share with any of the kids anyway,” he tried as an acceptable sounding excuse.

“Certainly not,” Valvatorez agreed. “But my own room has enough space for another to sleep.”

Fenrich grunted, in that case sticking to a clearer, “No.”

“Why not?”

Well, if he was going to press, “I don’t trust you.”

“...Oh.” Valvatorez only seemed embarrassed, not upset. Then he sighed. “My charges are always saying I’m too quick to trust people. I should learn to appreciate it doesn’t come so easily for others.” Nodding to himself, he set to unplugging the hairdryer to put away. “It would also make you uncomfortably dependent on me, wouldn’t it? I didn’t think my offer through sufficiently, I apologise.”

“It’s... fine,” Fenrich stiffly held out the towel too wet to dry himself any more with, before folding it to place on the room’s one tiny radiator.

“Nevertheless,” Valvatorez continued, “do feel free to make use of the facilities here such as this bathroom and our Wi-Fi whenever you’re here.”

Almost baulking away from such an alien offer, “...Thanks,” Fenrich muttered, following back out into the bedroom. There would indeed be enough room for a floor mat as it was, even a second bed with a little rearrangement of the furniture. He raised an eyebrow slightly at the existing bed, how vulnerable anyone sleeping in it would be, but Valvatorez was already on his way back downstairs and the conversation was therefore over.

There would still be plenty of chances, Fenrich knew as he followed.

~DOOD~

When it rained lunch was eaten inside. After making it in the kitchen each kid got their own choice of where to eat it in the large home.

Today Fenrich paid closer attention, watching the one kid who always slipped away unnoticed – Easy considering the mouths on the rest of the little menaces – and followed out into the corridor leading to the front entrance, cocking his head as that green prinny slipped out the front door with a lunch box under one arm.

Patiently, Fenrich himself waited until the corridor was clear and an innocuous amount of time had passed to follow, stepping out into the damp-cooled, grey air outside. A practical sheet of rain was pouring down in front off the building’s porch roof, the kid sat to one side beside his bike, spooked and curious. Fenrich found his hackles didn’t go up though, nothing about the kid’s behaviour suggesting his bike was at risk of anything worse than some well-deserved admiration.

Fenrich walked over to sit on the concrete porch floor as well, a comfortable few feet from the kid, and took his own wrapped lunch from his pocket. “Kurtis, right?”

“What do you want from me?”

He liked the kid’s wariness. “You’re the only one who makes any sense here, wanting to eat alone away from that lot.”

Kurtis smirked, eyes closed. “Are you counting Valvatorez in that?”

“He’s one of the worst of them,” Fenrich said, starting with the tail of this taiyaki.

“True. But he’s noble, and truly passionate about his job. That’s worthy of respect if nothing else,” Kurtis commented with casual enthusiasm. “Although I shouldn’t even be here in the first place, I’m glad I was able to meet him because of all this.”

Fenrich raised an eyebrow, turning to the kid. “You want to go home? If you shouldn’t be here.”

“Please. This is the only place I would ever refer to as home now,” Kurtis tutted, scowling slightly.

“Were your parents also pieces of shit?”

That got the kid’s attention, a bit of seeming vulnerability and trust. He was 17 apparently, but right here that seemed so fragile, so volatile between far older and far younger. “My parents, no, they were good people. But they died with my baby sister five years ago,” he answered distantly. “After that I went to live with my grandfather, but then he died last year too.”

“I heard you refused to go home to your foster father.”

Now Kurtis scowled again, looking like he was going to spit that put such a bad taste in his mouth. “Don’t refer to that unworthy and ignoble bastard as my ‘father’; thanks to him I nearly lost my adoptive sister Jennifer as well. He better enjoy his freedom while he still has it...”

‘Sister’? Carter hadn’t mentioned he had another child. Fenrich knew when to turn back to the rain and focus on his taiyaki, and his own business, though. The kid got on with eating his own lunch just as industriously, tucked up against the wall with what looked like a box of tapas dishes protected in his lap. His prinny hat was shoved down over his green hair and sharp features, behaviour so professional but yet skittish somehow, green eyes snapping up every few minutes to scan his surroundings. Fenrich frowned slightly. “...Were you looking at my bike?” he began as affably as he could.

Kurtis chuckled. “Only looking. I heard what you said to Fuka.” A kid that actually had working ears; that was a nice change around here. “I’m really interested in mechanics, any kind of science really,” he started to warm back up. “I’ve been looking at a career in that area since I can’t bear the idea of joining the police anymore.”

Fenrich snorted lightly. “Them? They’re as bad as any gang in this city, and even more corrupt.”

“I won’t dispute that from first-hand experience,” he scoffed. “My grandfather used to be an officer, a proper one who actually defended people, and he was disgusted by what they’ve become nowadays. As his grandson, I swore that I would uphold the legacy of the Don Joaquin name and sort them out myself, at least until all this happened. They’re a disgrace to the few good officers left like Police Captain Gordon.”

“Didn’t Captain Gordon die last month in that hostage situation with the gangs?”

“O-Oh. Yes. That’s what the newspaper said...” Kurtis admitted, shrinking back into himself.

“See? You’d made the right choice. Go be a scientist, or whatever,” Fenrich advised gruffly.

Kurtis didn’t reply, staring into the empty space in his lunch box.

“...You like it here?” Fenrich tried anew.

“Hm, it’s such a noisy and frantic place, full of delinquents and a meddlesome instructor who won’t ever give you a break. I thought I’d only put up with it until I could clear my name, but I’ve come to love it here actually.”

Fenrich looked closely, but the kid was honest-to-God genuine about it despite his forever-cool demeanour. “I take it back,” Fenrich said, “you’re as weird as the rest of them.”

Kurtis laughed, smiling an honest smile.

Fenrich averted his gaze the other way, trying to focus on why he was doing this. Returning his gaze to his bike, “You want to come for a ride sometime?” he offered, nodding to the bike.

“Absolutely,” the kid’s slight geekiness answered.

Easy. Now, as he bit off the head of his taiyaki, to deal with the other half.

~DOOD~

He stared up at the naked light bulb above his makeshift bed. The roof above it was silent now, rain finally having let up after two whole days.

Glancing around the empty, lifeless room, after an internal wrestle Fenrich began gathering his things into the one large bag he owned, taking everything and slinging it over his shoulder as he headed out to his bike this morning.

He let himself in as normal, seeking out Valvatorez setting up in the classroom. “Hey.”

“Ah! Good morning, Fenrich.” He obviously noticed the unusual presence of the bag slung over Fenrich’s back.

“The police have been sniffing around where I’m staying,” he lied. “Does that offer to move in here still stand?”

“Of course.” Valvatorez set the lesson materials down, done anyway. “The last thing we want is you getting arrested. Come store your things in my room.”

Fenrich nodded, following him upstairs. The kids would run by him without a glance now, only that one mythically quiet, blue-haired girl staring at him from behind her stuffed rabbit as they went into Valvatorez’s room together. He dropped his bag where indicated, assisting in shifting aside the room’s chest of drawers to make extra floor space for sleeping on. “Thanks.”

“Not at all,” Valvatorez assured. “I do hope the floor will serve purpose for now, even if it’s far from ideal.”

Fenrich glanced at the bed in the room, and out into the mostly deserted upper floor, before sidling up to Valvatorez slightly. “I could always join you, if you ever want.” He added a nod in the direction of Valvatorez’s bed, just to make it clear.

Those pale cheeks flushed wonderfully, red irises dwarfed as his eyes widened. “I-I, um... That is...” His hands were fretting too, fingers lacing at the tips while he couldn’t even look at Fenrich now.

Fenrich leant himself against the nearest wall, long chest stretching out and leather jacket riding up to display a full set of abs and hipbones.

Valvatorez definitely looked. He even lingered like he couldn’t stop. But he shook himself free, “I must see that the children have finished their breakfasts!” striding out with a flourish of his long, ragged coat.

Fenrich watched him go with great enjoyment, gaze flicking down and that lass might be the most irritating individual he’d ever encountered but she was right about that flat, little ass; whether it helped the mission or not, damn he needed some of that.

Fenrich played the dutiful assistant throughout that day, even doing his best not to show a temper around the children. He would allow his gaze to linger on Valvatorez often though, noticed or otherwise, and the subtlest of physical flexes were not rebuked. Valvatorez did continue to resist actually being seduced, however obvious his interest was, but perhaps it was just that adorably amusing sense of propriety of his. Perhaps tonight, once all the kids were in bed-

“Hey, you.”

Fenrich looked up from his phone at that kid with his prinny hat always tucked under a pulled-up hood, the one Valvatorez had told him not to touch the special, custom-made hoodie of and not to mind what he said. “What?”

“How long do you think you’ve got left to live?”

Whatever warnings he’d received, that was enough to make Fenrich choke on his evening taiyaki.

“If you answer a few questions I can help estimate for you.”

“Is that a threat?” Fenrich asked, ready to put his phone down and loom over this absolute pipsqueak if needed.

“I don’t know, that depends on how you answer me,” Hoodied Wannabe began haughtily. “For the record, I don’t trust you. Valvatorez might be the coolest Tyrant these streets have ever seen but he’s also a complete idiot. He might believe you’re here because you have a good heart, or whatever, but I don’t.”

“Think whatever you like,” Fenrich dismissed, returning to scrolling through his phone.

“Hey! Use some manners when you talk to me, dammit!” Hoodied Wannabe even pointed at him dramatically. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m top dawg around here; I get full marks on nearly all the tests Val sets!”

Fenrich spared a glance at this shrimp of a barely-adolescent who’d gone past amusingly haughty into just annoying. “You’re the son of our corrupt ex-mayor who got sold out by his own daddy so his father could get himself a lighter sentence, I know who you are.”

The kid flinched back, shrinking into his special hoodie. “Pops did that to protect me actually, even if he didn’t tell me at the time. And I’m glad ‘cause I was a spoilt wimp before I got sent here and manned up.” Fenrich raised an eyebrow at his use of past tense. “Besides, he wasn’t corrupt, he was only trying to help this city. It’s not our fault there were stupid laws against the way he tried to do it,” Hoodied Wannabe huffed.

“Well, luckily for you, whelp, there are also stupid laws against me punching you in the face right now. And I’m not dumb enough to get caught breaking them.” He continued scrolling on his phone even though he’d reached the end of his Pinterest feed, just to rile the kid up.

“I’m gonna tell Val you said that!”

“Go right ahead.”

“Unless you give me one of those pastry things!”

Now Fenrich had to look at him again, at the small finger pointing at his taiyaki. Not even going to begin on how stupid this conversation was getting, “You sure? They’re filled with spinach.”

Hoodied Wannabe pulled back in disgust, but said, “I-I don’t care! I eat all kinds of grown-up stuff like spinach all the time!”

Okay, new game time. “Go on then,” Fenrich said, holding out one he hadn’t bitten into yet.

Hoodied Wannabe stared at it, scowled at it even, before folding his arms. “No way. You might’ve poisoned it. I don’t trust you, remember?”

“If I’d poisoned them why would I be eating them?” Fenrich held the taiyaki out even closer, watching the kid trying to lean away without being obvious.

“Exactly so you can pretend they’re not poisoned, then get Val to eat one and kill him.” Fenrich blinked, hoping he looked only stunned by the accusation rather than panicked at this kid’s prescience. “You stay away from Val, do you hear?” Hoodied Wannabe continued, getting dramatic and point-y again. “I know you’re here to get up to no good, and I’m gonna find out who hired you, whether it was Majorita, or Void, or Carter,” Now he froze solid, “or Asagi! I’ll find out who it was and I’ll expose you to Val, dawg!”

“Did you just call me a ‘dog’?” Fenrich let his anger take over from the cold fear he was sweating inside right now.

“Wh-What?! No! I called you ‘dawg’, like ‘Yo, dawg!’” Hoodied Wannabe started backing off. “Get your damn ears checked, old timer!”

“‘Old timer’?!” Now Fenrich truly was angry, and climbed up from his seat.

The kid had already run off wailing though, back to where there would be too many other kids and most importantly Valvatorez.

Tutting, Fenrich slumped back into his seat, turning his blank phone over in his hands nervously. Glancing up at the ceiling and the feet stampeding to and fro as Valvatorez called the end of afternoon break, this could be very bad.

~DOOD~

The main room had a couple of decent TVs, something that seemed like a good idea for so many kids until the volume button wars inevitably started. There was a ton of video game consoles hooked up to them too, most of the kids having come from households with one or two they’d brought with them. It kept the whelps docile in their free time, and Valvatorez actually took an interest in the things they watched and played like a decent parent.

This evening he’d even organised a _Super Smash Bros._ tournament between all the kids, though encouraging fighting of any kind between the hellions seemed the worst idea imaginable to Fenrich.

Fenrich watched a few matches, particularly raising an eyebrow at the silent blue-haired girl who absolutely slayed the second match using Isabelle, before getting his chance to slip away unnoticed upstairs.

He’d paid as little interest as possible to Valvatorez telling him which kids shared what rooms during induction, but sticking his head into each open doorway it wasn’t hard to tell:

Brat-face and Sadistic Pigtails shared one room that wasn’t even a messy pigsty but looked like it was constantly being actively mutilated by its residents, patches of the carpet singed with burn marks and fist-sized dents in the wooden furniture.

Delusions and Game-Addicted shared another that looked pretty average for a couple of girls, stashed sweets and video games the only real crime going on there.

Small & Yellow shared with the blue-haired, silent girl, he was going to guess in the rabbit-themed room.

Bored Edgelord and Princess Pink Slut shared one with a split personality between his boringly neat half, cookery books aside, and hers slathered in tacky, fake-chic decorations and plastic jewellery.

Little Punk shared with that cat-loving, body-builder girl who had never caused enough trouble to get on Fenrich’s radar, the happiest-looking room if a bit scuffed up round the edges.

Which meant this very green room full of books on science and the occult, “Shit...” That Hoodied Wannabe kid shared with Kurtis.

At the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs Fenrich rushed towards Valvatorez’s room, pretending to be walking back from there. It was Valvatorez himself who had come up, catching Fenrich looking like he was returning from a simple bathroom break. “Ah, there you are, Fenrich. After this tournament is done the children want to do a teamed one by rooms, so that means you and I will be partners.”

“Do I have to?” Fenrich put up his usual front of indifference rather half-heartedly this time.

Valvatorez smirked. “I’ll be using Meta Knight, whom do you main?”

Since Fenrich had now approached him in the deserted corridor, standing over the shorter man, it was easy to put out a hand onto the wall behind Valvatorez and lean in right to the shell of his ear. “I can think of something much more fun we could do as roommates...”

He pretty much felt Valvatorez’s hot blush at the words, pulling back so he could enjoy the ruby-like red of those eyes. “I... W-Well...”

“No?” Fenrich reached out a little towards his hands and/or hip, waiting if he’d be given consent.

“I-It’s not that...” Valvatorez pulled his coat up around him, flushed face turning aside. “I’m afraid it’s not so simple...”

Fenrich pulled himself back, “Very well,” putting his hands on his waistband. When Valvatorez raised a surprised eyebrow at this, “I’m not going to force myself on you,” Fenrich explained, disgusted at the thought.

“O-Of course not. I know you wouldn’t,” Valvatorez agreed, still very flustered.

Fenrich left him be in that case, walking off towards the top of the stairs. “I main Wolf,” he finally answered. “Aren’t you coming?”

It was enough right now to have Valvatorez following at his back, debating whether Wolf was a clone fighter of Fox or not, then sharing a snide comment at the fact Bored Edgelord was literally boring enough to be maining Mario, even if he was doing a very good job at it. Valvatorez tolerated his slight cruelty and hot temper, even laughing slightly as if he found them endearing these days. He’d sit beside Fenrich on one of the sofas, closely even, without ever glancing to check he was safe. Valvatorez truly did trust him.

As Little Punk came over to tell them their first match-up though, Fenrich caught a different red eye watching them from across the room, frowning hard, and then coming to interrupt before Fenrich had a chance. “Hey, Val, we’re still on to visit Pops next weekend, right?” Hoodied Wannabe asked.

“Yes, I told the prison we were coming, Rascal.”

“Thanks.” The kid then fixed his gaze firmly on Fenrich. “I hope he doesn’t let you down.”

A slender hand came to rest on his back as Fenrich met that gaze head-on. “I’m sure Fenrich will be a fine partner for me, just as in real life.”

“Is that so?” the kid asked softly, not backing down. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Fenrich pulled back his lip on the side Valvatorez couldn’t see, baring a canine. It only made Hoodied Wannabe smile before he turned and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So why is a 29-year-old, de-aged here to 17, Kurtis amongst this bunch of Disgaea kids?  
>  ~~Because Kurtis is awesome and deserves this and far more~~ So originally the ‘prinnies’ were going to be generic kids with the attitudes of generic prinnies, aside from Kurtis who is the special kid because plot, plus the D4 kids to help ship Val and Fen. But then I remembered Prinny!Laharl is a thing, and once I started weaving him in to that scene in chapter 2 I went ‘fuck it’ and upturned the whole bucket of other Disgaea characters into this story. The ones I can write at least, so no Mao and Raspberyl for example, sorry. (Killia’s been de-aged a bit too technically since he’s meant to be about 20 but is 17/18 like Seraphina here. Jennifer is 15, maintaining her being two years younger than Kurtis, but Gordon is still an adult)


	4. Cold Taiyaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heck yeah, dood, this is the exciting one. (Part of that involves a content warning for someone getting shot)

Handling a late evening with the kids was so tiring Fenrich honestly wouldn’t have had the energy to proposition Valvatorez again even if he’d wanted to. Using the bathroom second, when Fenrich came back out into the small bedroom he wasn’t one bit surprised Valvatorez was already asleep in his bed, dead to the world with a stuffed sardine in his arms.

Fenrich stood over him silently, able even to reach out and let the softest tips of Valvatorez’s black hair brush against his fingertips without waking his target. There was a pillow on Fenrich’s makeshift bed that would easily be big enough, or that slim neck was so vulnerably exposed.

But the imperfectly drawn curtains let a shaft of moonlight in, Valvatorez’s sleeping face too beautiful in its radiance and shadows. His small features were almost child-like still, the same fragility that was in someone like Kurtis, the same plain and forthright openness that was in all the kids here.

Fenrich drew the curtains without Valvatorez stirring. He stood over the bed again for a while, then quietly lay down in his own blankets and sheets to sleep.

~DOOD~

That Hoodied Wannabe kid watched him from the first moment they were awake next day, particularly whenever he was near Valvatorez. Fenrich watched him back by the same measure, a silent duel everyone else was too busy to take notice of amidst the usual chaos of lessons and meals.

Come the time for physical activity in the late afternoon, today Valvatorez issued slightly different orders for the final half hour: “Prinnies, I want every surface of the kitchen cleaned from top-to-bottom inside and out. Emizel, you help Fenrich check all of the food items for anything that needs to be disposed of.” Then he clapped his hands to send them on their ways, heading off in a different direction himself.

Fenrich watched that small back disappearing around the side of the house towards the front door as the kids whooped and whined their way to the kitchen around him. He practically felt those other red eyes on him though, turning around to find Hoodied Wannabe frowning up at him from inside that green hood. Fenrich scowled back, silently walking into the kitchen with the whelp following right behind his every step.

“You do the lower cupboards and fridges,” Fenrich ordered, glad the little pipsqueak didn’t kick up a pompous huff but instead just got to work around the mostly less industrious other kids. Ignoring them, and that red-eyed stare on the back of his head, Fenrich set to opening the high cupboards and pulling out boxes of dried fruit and cereal, throwing them back in so long as the numbers on them weren’t egregiously bad.

The tedium ate away the minutes, but Fenrich’s curiosity only grew as to where Valvatorez had gone. He did leave the enclosed group home now and then to procure groceries or escort kids out to this or that in the city, but he’d always told Fenrich about such trips. What was so different this time?

Eventually all the cupboards were checked, supplies sparse enough it hadn’t taken long. The kids were fighting by squirting soap and maybe worse cleaning agents at each other but Fenrich walked out anyway into the main hall.

Those two sisters were at the slightly open front door, peeking through its crack like they were watching something good.

“Why aren’t you two helping out in the kitchen?” he started gruffly but not too loudly as he walked up behind them.

“He told his prinnies to do that, not us,” Delusions said. She noticed how Fenrich pointedly looked at her prinny hat and jacket but, “I’m only wearing these because I didn’t have any of my old clothes when I came here, not ‘cause I want to.”

“Desco wanted a jacket, but she was too small to equip it,” the little one added.

“I might be dressed like one but I’m not happy doing every little thing Valzy says like the rest of them. I’m, like, the complete opposite, an ‘unprinny’-”

“I don’t care,” Fenrich shut her up. “What are you two doing out here?”

Now the sisters grinned, getting that naughty look again. “Valzy’s getting our monthly delivery in from the food bank; Artina’s just pulled up.”

“Artina?” Fenrich questioned.

“Mr. Valzy likes Miss Artina,” Game-Addicted explained.

“She’s a nurse, and also works at the local food bank. Even though she’s super busy she still comes by all the time to see him,” Delusions added, both sisters going back to their peeping.

Fenrich shoved them aside, making space to peer out too.

A truck had come in through the gate, now parked and quiet as Valvatorez stood before it with some strange slut of a woman, skimpy white dress and even skimpier black and pink workout clothes beneath the furthest thing from a professional charity worker; she looked like the kind of bitch who went to Pilates class six times a week and sold overpriced, home-made glitter bath bombs on Etsy in her free time. She was leant forward towards him far too enticingly as he signed paperwork on a clipboard, eventually slipping the pen back into its clip. “All signed. There you go,” Valvatorez held it out to hand back.

She reached out for it, letting both their hands be on it for a moment before actually taking it back. “In that much of a hurry to get rid of me?”

“N-No, of course not!” Valvatorez hurried to assure with a flustered smile. “I-I... I just don’t want the food you’ve so kindly delivered to go off, yes! That’s all.”

She laughed. “It’s a refrigerated truck, Mr. Silly.”

“Ah. Quite right. S-So it is.” And he laughed, far more nervously.

“Why does he let her get away with being so rude to him?” Fenrich couldn’t help but growl, hand clenching on the door frame he was holding.

“Why d’you think?” Delusions asked, amused herself, while Game-Addicted made kissy noises.

“They’re not dating, are they?” Fenrich demanded. For the sake of the mission, because it was important to know your target, and all that.

“Hmm... I don’t know,” Delusions had fun drawing out. “Why? Are you jealous?”

Fenrich growled at her, “Shut up, you woefully undateable excuse for a human being; you’ll meet your death alone and forever unloved,” before returning his attention outside.

“You’re totally jealous,” she muttered, her sister giggling.

“-are heavy so make sure you get Rutile to help carry them in,” Artina was saying. “And I got those special ingredients you were asking for too. My little gift to you.”

“How kind of you. Thank you, Artina.” Valvatorez’s smile even glowed a bit.

“Yep, they’ll be 270 HL!” She struck a cute pose in emphasis.

“I have to pay for them?!” Valvatorez changed quite suddenly to exasperation. “You work for a food bank, Artina! A charity whose whole purpose is giving out food for free!”

“Oh, it’s not the food you’re paying for! It’s a finder’s fee, because of the extra work it took me.”

He sighed, crossing his arms and putting a hand in front of his face. “...All right, fine.” He reached into a pocket of his black, skinny jeans, pulling out the money she very eagerly took straight from his hand. Valvatorez was left blushing from the contact, and Fenrich’s hand very nearly cracked the door frame he was holding.

“Oh, we had a whole load of pizza base mix get donated too,” Artina continued. “I earmarked it for you because I thought the kids could have a lot of fun making their own pizzas one evening.”

“That’s so thoughtful of you, thank you!” he answered in a sickeningly happy voice. “Why, I think we’ll use them tonight – My charges have all been so well-behaved lately, and what with the big court case coming up...”

“Oh, that’s right, it’s nearly the end of the month. How’s he doing? Is K-”

Fenrich stormed away with a barely restrained growl, fists almost trembling. Damn the sisters giggling away behind him, damn the kids still misbehaving in the kitchen and damn Hoodied Wannabe’s red eyes that had come out to peer around the kitchen doorframe at him. He stomped his way upstairs instead, throwing open the door to Valvatorez’s room to grab what he needed.

Valvatorez was already in the kitchen by the time he came back down, brightening up from the punishment he’d been enacting on the misbehaving kids. “Ah, Fenrich! Sorry that took so long. We’re having a pizza party tonight-”

“I don’t like pizza,” Fenrich lied, grabbing some ingredients as he passed through.

“Oh,” Valvatorez accepted that, dubious as it obviously was. “Well, perhaps you can help with-”

“Do it yourself,” Fenrich growled at him, throwing open the back door.

“Fenrich-!” Both paused at the sound of a sharp bang behind them, one of the prinnies having exploded something and probably themself too in the kitchen.

Fenrich took the opportunity to kick the door shut behind him, storming off into a corner of the yard with his armful of ingredients. Crouching down in the dirt patch behind the storage shed, he took out the matches and moulds from his pocket to start cooking alone, snapping the first and second match he tried in his trembling frustration, “Damn it...!” before throwing the box down and away entirely.

~DOOD~

When Fenrich finally opened the back door again, left unlocked for him, the handle was deeply cold to the touch. He shivered, coming in after hours in the night air outside, too accustomed to silence and loneliness to find the deserted building creepy though.

His boots walked softly over its floors, avoiding the creaking spots he’d memorised on its stairs, heading along that upstairs corridor to Valvatorez’s room.

Valvatorez was exhausted asleep in his bed, an hour deep probably, and didn’t stir even as Fenrich took the time to quietly brush his teeth and clean up in the room’s small bathroom.

Tonight Fenrich drew the curtains fully first, plunging the room and Valvatorez into darkness, before he stood over that vulnerable body asleep around its stuffed sardine in bed. His hands were ready to reach out, to do this himself with a simple, clean break.

He didn’t move them though. He wanted to, but Fenrich didn’t.

Fifteen minutes into standing silently over Valvatorez the soft vibration of his phone inside his jacket’s inner pocket pulled him away, sending him out into the corridor with the door shut behind him to answer it. “What do you want, Carter?” he hissed at the lowest possible volume, spare hand covering his mouth.

“Are you inside?” Fenrich gave the softest grunt of confirmation. “I can’t afford to wait any longer. We’re doing it tonight.”

“Tonight?!”

“If you want your money, helping me pull this off successfully tonight is now your last chance.” Fenrich looked in the direction of Valvatorez’s room. “Now come let me in at the gate.”

Fenrich hesitated, the call hanging up and leaving him to answer with his actions.

He couldn’t help looking on lingeringly at Valvatorez’s room. But he turned away from its closed door to head downstairs and out through the kitchen back door.

The night air was far colder now for having been in the house, but Fenrich didn’t even pull his jacket closer around him as he trudged his way around to the front, eyeing up the gargantuan, silver car parked outside past the gate and Carter’s chrome-dome of a head waiting on the other side for him. Reaching into a pocket, Fenrich pulled out the keys to unlock the gate as quietly as possible, turning his back and walking off immediately with the hope the other man had sense to follow him.

He tried not to tut at how horrendously loud and bumbling Carter was even attempting something as simple as walking through the kitchen and downstairs. Once they got to the stairs, “Step lightly where I step,” Fenrich hissed, showing the other man clearly how to shut up and not ruin this for both of them.

He led Carter carefully to Kurtis’ room, its door open for them both walk straight through into the silent, green bedroom.

Fenrich had to walk right up to the bedside to realise though, “What-?!” Kurtis’ bed was empty, as was the other across from it as he spun around.

The light flicked on, Valvatorez stood before the room’s sole entrance with Kurtis behind him in the doorway. Valvatorez had his coat on over his sardine-print pyjamas; he’d known they were here for a good time. “Carter,” he greeted in steely hostility, not even sparing a glance for Fenrich.

“Shit.” Carter did spare a glance at Fenrich, one accusatory if he’d set this up, but the shock on Fenrich’s face seemed to convince him this hadn’t been intended. “Kurtis, what are you doing here? You don’t think you stand a chance in court, do you? You’re a smarter boy than that. Come with me and I’ll get them to drop your charges.”

“Never,” Kurtis answered, even with the concealed threat Fenrich could sense was in Carter’s offer. “Using Jennifer like that and then making me take the fall for it – You’re going down for what you did, Carter!”

“You ungrateful, little...!” Carter now turned to Valvatorez. “You’ll land him with a criminal record for life if you don’t tell him to come with me.”

“Kurtis is doing the right thing. His nobility and bravery will ensure the truth outs, however you try to frustrate it,” Valvatorez said, holding out an arm as if to shield Kurtis.

Carter stared down both of them for a moment, then took out a gun from his coat to aim at them. “Tell him to come with me,” he repeated calmly, wholly serious.

Where the kid’s eyes obviously widened slightly in fear, “Kurtis, stay behind me,” Valvatorez instructed, his resolve only seeming to grow in defiance if anything.

“Tell me where those two are,” Carter asked of Kurtis.

Kurtis tutted, actually brave enough to glare down his long nose at the man aiming a gun at him. “I knew you didn’t really care about me at all, only finding out where they are,” he spat, voice then rising, “You won’t be seeing Gordon and Jennifer until they’re in the witness box testifying against you in court!”

Fenrich started looking back and forth, getting lost as Carter now switched again to trying Valvatorez. “Tell me where they are before I shoot him.”

“I didn’t tell Valvatorez, or anyone else here. I’m the only one who knows how to contact them,” Kurtis answered. “He advised me you’d try something like this, Carter.”

“Damn you, Valvatorez,” Carter snarled at him, brandishing the gun again in his anger. “This is why it’s finally time to get revenge on you as well! First you and your little brats thwart my redevelopment plans for this downtown cesspool and now – I was so close to cracking that boy until you swept in and spoilt everything!”

“‘Spoilt everything’?! By saving a lad you were having police officers detain without adequate food or sleep-?!”

“You keep ruining my attempts to save this rotten city!” Carter’s gun now took aim clearly at Valvatorez. “Tell me where they are, Kurtis, or I’ll shoot him.”

“Don’t tell him,” Valvatorez said.

But even he could sense Kurtis silently hesitating behind him. “You know I’ll do it,” Carter confirmed. “You told him what I did, didn’t you? He could also testify against me, that’s why I hired this assassin to kill him.” Fenrich flinched back as the attention in the room turned to him for the first time, Valvatorez meeting his eyes for a second with that same steely frown he was regarding Carter with. “Whatever little friends you’ve told here,” Carter continued scornfully, “the court won’t believe delinquents like that. But you know I have to dispose of Valvatorez. Unless you cooperate with me of course.”

Kurtis really was hesitating. But Valvatorez was blocking his way, whatever he might be tempted to do alone.

“Did you get cold feet about getting rid of this street trash tyrant?” Carter asked to Fenrich, who froze unable to give an answer. “You know, I’m actually glad you did,” he said, pulling the trigger himself.

Valvatorez gasped and buckled slightly as Kurtis shouted for him, hand wrapping around his thigh where his pale fabric was lost within seconds to dark blood pouring out from between his fingers, coating them thickly enough to drip off at the tips. His face contorted in an excruciating wince and breathing absolutely ragged, the impossibility of a man remained standing though without support, even straightening up as much as his grip on his thigh would allow.

Lights were coming on now out in the corridor. Removing his prinny jacket, Kurtis ripped off the sleeve of his pyjama shirt underneath as Fenrich began to hear desperate but quietened voices outside the room.

“You want his death on your conscience, Kurtis?” Carter asked as Kurtis took the removed sleeve, wrapping it around Valvatorez’s wounded leg from behind.

“I-I’m fine, lad,” Valvatorez tried to reassure, allowing Kurtis to tie the sleeve and pull it tight to try and halt the blood flowing from the wound.

“If you’d just cooperated with me sooner, Kurtis, none of this would have had to happen,” Carter persisted. “It won’t just be Valvatorez that has to die now, all your little friends here are witnesses too thanks to this tonight.” The rapid escalation was bringing a frantic panic to Kurtis’ face as he tried to keep up, to think of a way out of this aside from the one Carter was presenting.

Fenrich too, “Are you insane?!” finally had to speak up. “One murder and a kidnapping we could have gotten away with, but there’s no way we’re getting out of murdering twelve people!”

Carter ignored him, “It’s all up to you, Kurtis,” speaking over Valvatorez’s assurances not to give in, “Anyone who gets hurt or killed tonight is all because of you,” knowing this was the strategy to press home.

And in his state, shaking and terrified, Kurtis was on that verge of giving in.

“Don’t listen to him, Kurtis, plip!” a small voice called from out in the corridor though.

“Whatever that sack of crap does isn’t your fault!” shouted another bratty one.

“You gotta stay strong, bro!” cheered another punk’s.

“Shut up and stay out of this, you street rats!” Carter yelled.

“Don’t talk to my friends- No,” Kurtis corrected, “my family like that! They may be a meddlesome bunch,” he scorned fondly before his sharp eyes became determined again, “but at least they genuinely want me for who I am. As soon as you realised I’d be too wise for your schemes you fostered Jennifer to give to the gangs instead.”

Fenrich pulled back slightly, turning to Carter. “I thought you were trying to get rid of the gangs.”

“Stay out of this,” Carter snapped dismissively at him. “You’re not necessary anymore.”

Fenrich couldn’t help his lip pulling back in restrained anger, glancing at Carter’s gun. “He’s not going to get rid of the gangs,” Kurtis drew his attention; “he handed his own daughter over to them to get her and Captain Gordon killed just so he could start a war on them using the police, but even that’s only so he can force them to obey him to survive it; all he wants is to control them-”

“Shut up!” Carter raised the gun again.

Fenrich’s hand came slamming down on his though, crushing it so hard even though a forefinger was on the trigger Carter was unable to bend his finger enough to pull it. Carter’s eyes were wide with fear when they looked up at Fenrich looming over him, face cast in shadow by the light above with only his golden eyes burning.

Squeezing even harder until the gun dropped from that twisted hand, “You piece of shit,” Fenrich delivered a triple strike to head, stomach and groin, for good measure, that sent Carter flying back, crumpling straight to the floor. Fenrich crouched down to assess he was sadly unconscious and unable to feel the pain of it sadly though.

Another body collapsed and hit the floor, Valvatorez falling down completely slack onto the bloodied carpet beneath him.

“Val!” Kurtis was first to his side, adjusting him into a slightly safer position on his side where it was very easy to see Valvatorez was out cold and very, very pale, covered in a sheen of sweat.

“A-Are you still there, Artina?!” Hoodied Wannabe came running into the room in his hoodie over pyjamas, a phone to one ear. “Val p-passed out! He-He’s bleeding all over the floor-! He was shot in the thigh, just through the flesh and the bullet’s not in there! Kurtis wrapped something around it but it’s s-still bleeding!” he assessed with the other boy’s help. “It won’t stop bleeding!”

Artina. A nurse.

Fenrich walked over while the kid was still babbling more details into the phone, snatching it from him. “Bring equipment for a blood transfusion.”

The female voice on the other end answered, “But he won’t-!”

“Bring it!” Fenrich roared. “We’ll use my blood.” Cutting the call and throwing the phone onto one of the beds in the room, “Move!” he ordered of the two boys, swooping down to lift up the incredibly light body of Valvatorez in his arms. “Get towels now!” he shouted at the kids who had come to linger and block the doorway to the room, forcing them back through intimidation before shoving his way through physically to carry Valvatorez to his own bedroom.

Fenrich ignored the blood already running thickly down his arm, supporting Valvatorez with one arm long enough to remove his coat. The kids were quick enough to have a pile of towels by the time he was ready to lay the man down on his bed on them, ordering some of the kids to hold the wounded leg up vertically to try and halt the blood flow while pressing a towel to the wound.

“One of you go down and wait for her at the gate!” Fenrich ordered, throwing open the curtains to the sight of an empty nighttime street outside aside from Carter’s garishly large car.

“Yes, plip!”

“Will she call the cops?” Fenrich asked, glancing away from the bed briefly to where Carter was still probably unconscious in the other room.

“Artina? N-No, that’s why I called her,” Hoodied Wannabe answered from the bed, having volunteered along with Kurtis given they were already covered in blood.

Fenrich nodded, knowing the kids were smart enough he could focus on Valvatorez again. Removing one leather glove, he lay the back of his hand against a far too cold, clammy forehead. Pressing into the pulse point where the neck met the corner of the jaw, Valvatorez’s pulse was weak and he was still yet to stir. “Idiot...!” Fenrich pulled himself back, facing away from all the kids, waiting for the one who could actually save him.

~DOOD~

After fifteen excruciatingly silent minutes, the only brief respites when one of the kids would speak up to say the bleeding was slowing or Valvatorez’s pulse was still there, an odiously hot pink, little buggy of a car – The thing had angel wing fenders! – pulled up finally outside the gate.

“She’s here! Move!” Fenrich shouted at the kids thronging the room, particularly the all-important path between the door and Valvatorez’s bed.

They did actually listen to him and shift aside, especially at the sound of footsteps running up the staircase out in the corridor.

Small & Yellow came running in ahead of a rushing Artina, pink hair loose but still dressed ridiculously scantily in camisole and shorts pyjamas. “Is it still bleeding?” she asked, setting down a bag at the bedside and pulling on clean medical gloves.

“A little, but only sluggishly,” Hoodied Wannabe answered.

“How long ago was he shot?” she asked, Kurtis lifting the towel pressed to the wound briefly so she could check.

“About twenty minutes ago.”

Artina now set to taking Valvatorez’s pulse from his neck by counting under her breath, also feeling his temperature and heartbeat at the same time.

“Will he be okay, Miss Artina?” Game-Addicted spoke up, too young not to come up to the bedside and interrupt. She had a closed 3DS in her hands, one that had been silent this whole time even as she gripped it tightly.

“With his condition we have about two hours before his body starts shutting down on him,” she answered, pulling away and unzipping her bag. “If we can get enough blood into him before then he’ll be fine.” She pulled out the clear plastic tubes and bags of a blood transfusion set, looking around for somewhere to hang it.

Fenrich saw how she startled at the sight of him, the first time she’d actually seen him he realised. He snatched one of the bags from her hands, hanging it on the corner of a nearby bookcase if she wasn’t going to, before throwing off his jacket.

Since he was obviously the man who had spoken on the phone, “He’s going to need a lot of-”

“I don’t care. Do it.” Before she could open her mouth again and waste more time, “I’m type O, universal.”

Artina nodded and shut up, taking out medical alcohol and cotton wool. “You’re going to want to sit down for this, Mr. Biker.”

“My name is ‘Fenrich’.” But he took a seat anyway.

She swabbed down his forearm to sterilise it. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Biker.”

He growled, but she jabbed him with the end of the transfusion tube before he could snap again. Wincing with what dignity he could keep, he took solace watching the transparent tube fill with rising blood from his forearm before looking away from everyone in the room, letting her do the rest.

“You should eat something to keep your strength up,” she told him, then the kids, “Could one of you-?”

“I’ve got something,” Fenrich cut her off, pulling out a wrapped package from his pocket with the arm not giving blood. Opening up the pizza-filled taiyakis inside, he hadn’t had the stomach for them earlier really; now mangled by his pocket and long-cold they were hardly any more appealing. For Valvatorez’s sake though he bit into the cold taiyaki, glancing again at the blood leaving his body and beginning to head down the other side into Valvatorez’s deathly pale forearm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artina’s car might sound cool, but if we’re talking Disgaea cars I’d have to pick this [one](https://disgaea-art.tumblr.com/post/51318732753) (I really hope the horn goes ‘beep, dood’)
> 
> Also, I am like whatever the complete opposite of a medical practitioner is, so disclaimer that the medical practices in this fic may not be wholly accurate/should not be tried at home.


	5. Sardine Taiyaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got loooong.
> 
> Yes, it’s because Val gets too excited about sardines.

By morning most of the kids had returned to their rooms at some point to rest, even if he didn’t know how much sleep any of them would have managed. Kurtis was the one kid who hadn’t, seating himself at the end of Valvatorez’s bed and assisting Artina whenever she needed something. He’d been trembling himself for hours but the light painkillers Artina had prescribed meant he had now nodded off against the wall beside the bed end, lanky body slumped like a marionette with the strings cut . Fenrich really didn’t feel in any position to say anything to the kid.

Fenrich himself had nodded off too at some point after he was done giving all the blood he could, the fatigue of how much he’d lost. Artina had cleaned and dressed Valvatorez’s wound, and never behaved as if there was anything to worry about, so all must have been relatively well.

Dawn woke Fenrich, the curtains having never been drawn back again. Kurtis was still dozing, but Valvatorez-

“Wakey, wakey, Mr. Sleepyhead,” Artina said, poking him in the cheek for good measure.

Valvatorez had already groaned to make his consciousness known, but now began to move very weakly as well, finally opening his eyes. After a moment severely dazed and confounded, his voice croaked out, “How’s-?”

She pointed him quietly to the end of the bed, Valvatorez able to lift his head just enough to see Kurtis, before it dropped back into the pillow from exhaustion. After a moment’s rest it rolled to the side, spotting the blood transfusion tube feeding into his forearm. “No...” he reached for it weakly, trying to pull it out even in his state. “I won’t-”

Fenrich’s hand clamped down on his, pushing it back. “It’s my blood, and I wouldn’t give it to anyone but you. Stop being difficult and just take it,” he said, watching that Valvatorez would behave before stumbling back to his own chair to rest.

“You should do as he says, Mr. Vampire,” Artina concurred. “You would have died without that blood Mr. Biker gave you.”

He couldn’t bear the way Valvatorez’s eyes were looking only at him, or the soft way he said, “Thank you...” After some quiet breathing and a little shifting about, Valvatorez’s voice asked, “How’s the wound? Will I be able to walk on it?”

“You might need a cane for a week or two, but nothing’s broken,” Artina told him.

“Good,” Valvatorez sighed with relief. “So long as I can look after the kids.”

She tutted. “You should look after yourself for a change, Mr. Instructor.”

He chuckled. “You sound like Fenrich.”

Fenrich glanced over, but turned away again before that woman could get a proper look at him.

They were interrupted anyway by, “What happened to my trousers?” Valvatorez asked with a comical new degree of clarity.

“I had to take them off to clean and dress your wound,” Artina took a little joy in teasing, while Fenrich glanced at where the bloody pyjama bottoms had been tossed across the room. “It’s a shame the wound wasn’t a little higher or I would’ve gotten to take the rest off as well.”

“Ar-Artina!”

She giggled far too happily, casually pointing out, “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Fenrich stiffened, hating the adorable sound of mortification that came out of Valvatorez which Artina got to laugh at. The whole exchange woke Kurtis anyway, which was some small mercy when he enthusiastically moved round to the bedside to show he was fine all thanks to Valvatorez.

The whole lot of them were going to be in here any moment now Valvatorez was up. Fenrich shot an unnoticed, dirty glance at Artina before quietly lifting himself out of his chair, trudging across the room and out into the silence of the upstairs corridor.

No one even noticed as he made his way downstairs, quietly opening the front door to slip out into the cool, dawn air. His bike was pulled up out the front, and the gate was open ready. “Shit...” All his stuff was still in Valvatorez’s room though.

He slumped down to sit on the concrete porch near his bike. Artina would leave at some point now her patient was better, the kids would be running wild in the house as ever and eventually Valvatorez would fall asleep to rest. Fenrich could wait.

He watched the slivers of sunlight begin to illuminate the city streets out beyond that chain-link fence he’d been surrounded by for weeks now. It was quiet out there, each person making their own solitary way wherever they were going. Far from and nothing like this strange, little place.

~DOOD~

A police car rolled up before too long in the early morning, Fenrich having already had the forethought to hide himself and his bike down the unused side of the building.

The green-haired four-eyes who got out looked a strange one, but all the kids came running out with such enthusiasm they must know him. Eavesdropping, Fenrich soon gathered this Christo was a graduate of the group home – “I can’t believe he ended up being a police officer,” Princess Pink Slut mentioning to Artina – and therefore an officer they could actually trust with Carter until the trial. Apparently Brat-face and Sadistic Pigtails had taken Carter out to the storage shed to have fun with during the whole palaver, but Carter still seemed to be one piece when it came time for collection sadly.

“And Gordon and Jennifer are still safe?” Christo was asking as he prepared to leave, stood out the front with the rest.

“I checked using the Thursday AI app Jennifer made. They’re fine,” Kurtis answered.

“That’s good. I know what it’s like to have false charges on your name right now, Kurtis, but we’ll make sure your name’s cleared come the trial, okay?” he reassured, before sounding as if he turned to Valvatorez. “Do you want to press charges for last night?”

“No, I have faith Kurtis’ case alone will be sufficient to see justice done,” Valvatorez answered. “And I wouldn’t want to get Fenrich in any trouble.”

“Well, that’s fine. It shouldn’t be hard to convince Carter it’s in his best interests not to make a fuss about what he tried to do here,” Christo said, “but who’s Fenrich?”

“He’s Valzy’s new boyfriend!” Delusions made a point of butting in very quickly.

“Boyfriend?” Christo questioned, chuckling. “Well, that certainly took long enough!”

“You got a boyfriend and didn’t even tell me?” Artina joined in, sounding far too intrigued.

“Lass, do stop spreading such inaccurate blatherskite,” Valvatorez scolded, and there was the sound of a tongue being comically stuck out at him. “Fenrich is a volunteer who’s been helping here, that’s all.”

“He was working for Carter though,” Hoodied Wannabe spoke up.

“He was?” Artina questioned, sounding quite uncertain now.

“Granted, Rascal,” Valvatorez responded. “But he came through for us in the end, which shows he’s a comrade of ours now, whyever he was originally here.”

Fenrich shrunk up tighter where he sat against the wall, especially when Hoodied Wannabe said, “Or maybe he just realised Carter wasn’t going to pay him anymore and wanted to try and get off the hook by saving you.”

“Rascal...” Valvatorez began in warning.

“Where’s he gone anyway?” Delusions asked. “I don’t see his bike.”

“Fenrich’s business is his own, lass,” Valvatorez told her. “Now all of you get inside and clean up that kitchen – My word, I’m injured for one morning and you all can’t even make breakfast without somehow getting butter on the ceiling!” Someone yelped a little in surprise. “Yes, Zeroken, I did see that!”

It sounded as if they all dispersed at that point, Christo’s police car driving off with Carter while the rest went back inside. Artina’s car was still here, Fenrich noted, probably invited in for some thank-you breakfast together by Valvatorez.

Fenrich let his arms hang down from where his elbows were resting on his knees, eyes struggling to stay open as another wave of wooziness washed over him. His pockets were empty though, and he still hadn’t had that chance to sneak in yet.

He’d been through worse than this though, far worse. He could continue waiting.

~DOOD~

Finally, after far too much time spent inside with Valvatorez no doubt, Artina came out and left in her ridiculous car.

All the kids soon came out into the yard, probably so Valvatorez could get some rest inside. Or at least he certainly wasn’t out there watching them given the sorts of things the kids were getting up to without being shouted at.

Fenrich headed in through the front door, the house as silent as his own movements through it heading upstairs cautiously. Every room was empty, only Valvatorez resting asleep in his as predicted.

Having never really unpacked his life into the place it was easy for Fenrich to gather what possessions he had back into that one bag he slung over a shoulder. He didn’t let himself cast a glance at Valvatorez, only looking at the blood stains that had dripped across the carpet and corridor flooring in all that mess last night.

The large, dark stain of Valvatorez’s blood on the carpet of Kurtis and Hoodied Wannabe’s room was the only thing he paused at, before putting his head down to walk out and leave.

His bag strapped onto the back of his bike’s seat, he took hold of its handlebars to wheel it silently towards the open gate. Sunlight had flooded the city outside by now, far past the zenith of the sky and heading down towards the day’s end. Pausing ready to throw his leg over his bike-

“Fenrich!”

He held out, trying to pretend he hadn’t heard Valvatorez’s voice calling to him or even ignore it. But Fenrich looked back, seeing the whole damn lot of kids were there too out on the front step behind Valvatorez who’d hobbled down on a cane, that billowing and tattered coat on over a baggy shirt and sardine-patterned shorts. “You can charge Carter for what he did last night, to help Kurtis’ case,” Fenrich said. “Don’t worry about the police finding me.” If he really had meant that anyway.

“You’re leaving?” Valvatorez asked, and the disbelief actually made Fenrich blink.

He hesitated, wondering how clearly he needed to clarify to the airhead, “I was hired to kidnap Kurtis and to kill you.”

“Well, yes,” Valvatorez seemed to understand that much. “But you didn’t.”

He almost felt physically pained by how ridiculous this was. Looking to Kurtis the kid didn’t seem to have one shred of a problem either. “I fell for Carter’s plans too once upon a time. You and I, we’re not that dissimilar,” he coolly assessed. “Besides, you offered to let me have a ride on your bike sometime,” Kurtis added more cheerfully.

“That was... just so I could get a chance to kidnap you,” Fenrich broke to him.

“Oh.” He stood up a little straighter, scratching at his green hair. “So I don’t get to have a ride then?”

Was that kid biologically related to Valvatorez or something? Fenrich sighed. “I only ever volunteered here so I could get a better chance to strike,” he cleared up for Valvatorez. “Everything I did here was just so I could carry out my mission and get paid.”

“Even teaching me how to use Wolf in _Smash_?” Little Punk asked.

“And teaching Usalia how to make a Pinterest feed of new carrot recipes, plip?”

“You got way too into dodgeball for that to be true, liar!” Brat-face accused, pointing at his still slightly black eye.

“You washed Usagi...” blue-haired girl’s bunny spoke in front of her mouth, spot-cleaned of the jam stains it had gotten the other morning.

“I still don’t trust you!” Hoodied Wannabe wanted to make clear, huffing as he shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets. “But your taste in music is abysmal, judging by the lousy stuff I’ve heard playing from your phone, so if you’re nice and apologise I’ll introduce you to some way better tunes.”

“Plus you haven’t even gone on your first date with Valzy yet!” Delusions enthused, something all the kids suddenly seemed to get behind.

Fenrich grunted in irritation, while Valvatorez at least blushed. “He’s not interested,” Fenrich answered her.

“How do you know that?” she retorted.

“Because he turned me down,” if the lass insisted on dragging all this out into the open.

The kids were actually a little scandalised as they all looked to Valvatorez. “That’s not true,” he answered himself. “It’s simply... complicated.”

“Because you like that nurse bitch,” Fenrich growled, turning back around to his bike to get out of here before he had to hear it.

“Artina?” Valvatorez sounded surprised behind him. “You think I’m interested in her?”

“Please,” Fenrich scoffed.

“Artina was the nurse who looked after me when I first fell ill,” Valvatorez’s voice spoke up strongly, forbidding Fenrich to leave until he had heard this. “She was the first person to show me affection and the experience of friendship, so she is special to me. And very well, I do have feelings for her, yes.” Fenrich flinched, turning back to glare, but finding Valvatorez was glaring at him much more strongly. “But I will not have you judging me on involuntary emotions I have no say over. A person may only be judged by their actions, and I promise you I have never and will never act upon them. I have no desire to, in fact.”

“...Why?” Fenrich asked, feeling that utterly bamboozled feeling once again trying to deal with the reality that was Valvatorez.

“After that initial, rather intense meeting, as I got to know her truly as an ally I realised we are too different as people, with too different places in the world. I do not want to spend my life with her, despite my feelings.”

“Most people consider romantic feelings are for acting upon without thinking about such practical matters.” Fenrich actually chuckled. “You really are ridiculous...”

Valvatorez could only shrug. “I happen to know her interests lie with another anyway; she has devoted herself to trying to salvage the life of our ex-mayor’s conspirator Nemo after his fall from grace.”

“Him?!” That demented ex-judge who’d been stricken so ceremoniously from the bar? “You’re far better-looking than he is!”

Valvatorez reared back slightly with pink cheeks, while the kids laughed and Fenrich averted his gaze.

“If that’s the case,” Fenrich hoped to get things back onto a less embarrassing topic, “what’s so ‘complicated’?” he had to know.

“Oh. Well...” Valvatorez hesitated awkwardly, “I’m not certain I’d be a very satisfying paramour to pursue. After all, I never have time for dates or...” He cleared his throat politely instead for the sake of small ears listening, “what with caring for all these children. Plus I’ve... never been in any form of relationship before,” he admitted, slender hands fidgeting on his cane. “It’s not so simple for me to just...” he trailed off, averting his gaze high into the sky rather than continue discussing such a private matter in this situation.

“I told you he was still a virgin,” Sadistic Pigtails said with glee.

“So what?” Brat-face huffed. “Just ‘cause you hooked up with that Flonne chick of the Police Chief’s. Big deal.”

“Indeed, there’s nothing to be ashamed of in never having had sexual relations with another person, regardless of one’s age,” Valvatorez said in all seriousness.

Fenrich stared flatly at Valvatorez’s unashamed face, because seriously? “That’s why you...?” He sighed, face-palming with a groan.

“Seriously, Valzy,” Delusions started with him too. “If you want some alone time with Fenfen all you have to do is ask – We’ll be good!”

“Absolutely not!” Valvatorez returned to form. “Even trying to sleep for half an hour, I’m genuinely amazed the yard is still in one piece from the sounds of what you all were doing!” Every kid winced slightly, the reaction of the busted. “I can’t imagine the place would even still be standing when we got back if Fenrich and I went out for something as simple as a meal together!”

Fenrich wasn’t going to dispute that. “I don’t particularly care for _dates_ anyway,” he wanted to clear up, which Valvatorez looked glad about. But, in that case, “You should know... I was only trying to seduce you as part of my mission,” Fenrich forced himself to admit. “...At first.” He wanted to leave it at that, waiting for Valvatorez to say something. But Fenrich couldn’t wait long enough before having to say, “I... have come to genuinely like you, however...”

“Fenfen’s such a tsundere!” he heard Delusions laugh, but he couldn’t face looking anywhere near Valvatorez’s direction right now.

Valvatorez didn’t scold her. Instead he only asked, “Are you going to stay?”

Fenrich tried to hold out, but he looked up at that frail pipsqueak of an instructor surrounded by his throng of even more ridiculous kids. Every single one of them was looking to him, waiting on his answer. Dappled in the shadows of the chain-link fence, those prinny hats sat like a family across such a strange mix of heads, they had all come to see if he was going to stay or not. Fenrich sighed hard, rubbing his nails against his scalp, “Damn it...” before grabbing the handlebar of his bike to drag it back round towards the home. He still barked at all the kids who came rushing forward to group-hug him, and at Valvatorez for daring to chuckle so fondly at it, but damn it he slung his bag onto his shoulder ready to take back upstairs.

“Excellent!” Valvatorez declared, throwing out his arms and his coat with it. “I had been intending to save this for after Kurtis’ trial, but I think this evening is far more deserving of the special treat I have planned!” As the kids cheered, and Fenrich groaned about whatever he’d gotten himself into now, “The moulds I ordered arrived, and I had Artina bring us enough ingredients that we can all try making taiyaki tonight!”

“All right, two food parties in a row!” Zeroken cheered.

“You’re having vegetables with them, Zeroken,” Valvatorez cut that fantasy quickly down to size.

“Damn it.”

“Now, it’s my understanding a taiyaki can be filled with whatever one desires,” Valvatorez continued, looking to Fenrich to confirm.

“Traditionally it’s sweet red bean paste, but you can do other sweet things like chocolate or custard, or savoury things like meat.”

“I want chocolate!” Fuka yelled.

“Desco too!”

“In that case,” Valvatorez explained, “Fenrich and Killia, you take everyone out to buy whatever fillings they want to put in theirs.” He reached into a pocket of his coat, handing over some money to Fenrich with a bit of a frown. “Try and stretch this, it’s all that’s left for this month.”

Fenrich slightly scorned the pitiful amount placed in his palm. “If you ever want me to murder that idiot council warden, just say the word.”

“Kurtis,” Killia spoke up as the younger kids started getting far too excited about the tiny field trip, “you should stay here to rest and look after Val.” Kurtis nodded, even if Valvatorez wanted to object he was fine. “What should I pick up for you?”

Thinking momentarily, “Get me some spinach. I saw Fenrich eating it the other day and wanted to try my own Spanish twist on it,” he decided.

“What about you?” Fenrich supposed he should ask Valvatorez.

“Do you seriously need to ask what he’s going to put in his?” Fuka pointed out though, and she was right, it was a stupid question.

“Right,” Valvatorez broke in, “everyone, go get changed into suitable clothes for town and get thinking what you’ll use as your filling.” Everyone seemed to unanimously decide what they were wearing right now was fine, as teenagers do. “Kurtis and I will get the kitchen ready while you’re gone.”

“Know where to go?” Fenrich asked Killia, who nodded. “Right, anyone who gets lost is getting left to fend for themselves,” he told the kids, tossing his bag to the floor by Valvatorez to take inside for him. “Get moving already.” His long legs made no compromise for the many shorter ones that had to follow him as they headed out onto the streets together.

~DOOD~

“They’re not really _tai_ -yaki if they’re not sea bream-shaped,” Fenrich did want to point out as he leered over Valvatorez’s... interesting order of moulds.

“Very well, we’re making _iwashi_ -yaki then,” Valvatorez corrected, if Fenrich was going to quibble, distributing the sardine-shaped moulds amongst the kids.

“These are going to be way harder to fill than nice, flat ones,” Fuka complained of the rather thin shape.

“Should Usalia start boiling her carrots ready to purée now, plip?”

“I think my hot dogs are going to be too long for these moulds, bro...”

Valvatorez looked to Fenrich. Oh hell no, Fenrich tried to convey as he met the expectant hope there about him leading this cookery class. But given every set of eyes in the room was looking to him when he glanced round, “Fine,” he sighed. “But I’m only going to show you all once so pay attention.”

One demonstration later, which had kept the kids miraculously quiet for the most part, they were all back to dicking around and needing assistance.

The ones that wanted to burn what they made could go ahead and mess their own taiyakis up; Valvatorez seemed to be doing what he could to prevent Laharl and Etna’s disaster zone from sucking in further victims, and Fenrich would leave him to that.

“Do we need to add anything else before we purée them, Mr. Fenrich?” Rutile was asking as she showed him her pot of boiled strawberries, a much more enviable task.

“I guess you should add some sugar if you want it to be sweet,” he shrugged.

“I won’t add too much, to keep it healthy,” she decided far too purely as she reached up to get the sugar down for herself, before handing it to Usalia beside her.

Who promptly up-ended the rest of the bag into her pot. “Usalia will make the sweetest taiyaki the world has ever seen, plip!” Her funeral, Fenrich shook his head.

“How do we purée it, Mr. Fenrich?” Rutile asked.

“Is there a potato masher or...?” he started looking through cupboards and drawers with them.

Around the counter next to them, “Where are you going to go after the trial, Kurtis?” Emizel asked, spooning out chocolate spread ready to drop into the centre of his frying taiyaki. “They won’t make you go back to live with Carter, right?”

“No way! I’m making them un-foster me from him, Jennifer too,” Kurtis said, lifting up his plate of half-chopped spinach to avoid contamination from one of Zeroken’s flying hot dog chunks. “Gordon said he’ll adopt Jennifer. He offered to adopt me too if I wanted, but I guess it’s lucky for you guys I’ve decided my place is here instead.”

“Good. Even though you try way too hard at the ‘cool big brother’ thing, you’re the only one aside from Zeroken around here with a decent taste in music, and even he listens to way too many video game OSTs,” Emizel said, Fenrich finally finding two potato mashers that would do the job.

“Hey, the _Pokémon Sword/Shield_ OST slaps, don’t try and deny it, bro,” Zeroken objected, pointing his knife for emphasis which sent another chunk of hot dog flying.

One that landed right in Emizel’s latest chocolate spread filling. “Dammit, Zeroken! Learn to use a damn knife, would you?!” He grabbed a handful of Kurtis’ spinach, despite protests, throwing it back at Zeroken.

Which Fenrich watched totally miss and end up all over Seraphina’s honey-filled taiyakis, although presently their owner was distracted by, “What are you making, Killia?”

“I wanted to try a couple of fillings: A variation on the traditional sweet adzuki bean paste with agave syrup and finely diced apple, then a savoury variety using red kidney beans, chopped parsley and fresh-squeezed lemon juice,” he explained, dicing apples like a demon all the while.

“I’m sure they’ll both be amazing,” she flattered. “Everything you make is always wonderful.”

“Thanks. I still need to improve though if I’m going to pass the entrance exam for Mr. Champloo’s Culinary College.”

“You won’t be moving out if you succeed, will you?”

“No, Val said I could stay here at least for the first year. Once I start the apprenticeship portion I’ll be making enough money to support myself from then.”

“Good, because- Who threw vegetables all over my taiyaki?!” she finally noticed, then where they must have come from. “Kurtis!”

“Don’t look at me! It was Emizel!”

“Hey, don’t rat me out, dawg! Bros before hoes!”

“What did you just call me, you little pre-pubescent-!”

“Oh no! Mr. Fenrich!” He was actually loath to turn away from the impending battle royale of entertainment, but Rutile had yanked very hard on his sleeve, wanting to show him the bottom of her metal pot she’d managed to smash a massive dent into with her potato masher. “I didn’t mean to!”

He sighed, wondering if maybe, “Could you try hitting it from the other side to smash the dent back in?” She looked uncertain, but before he could watch her try-

“Is the chocolate burning, Big Sis?” Desco asked along with the distinct smell of burning.

“Chocolate doesn’t burn!” Fuka insisted. “Chocolate just melts when it gets hot, that’s all the smell is!”

Leaning over, “No, that’s burning,” Fenrich could easily tell as her fruitless stirring struggled to get blackening milk chocolate off the sides of her saucepan quick enough. “Mainly because that’s not how you melt chocolate.”

“Whaddya mean it’s not how to melt chocolate?” Fuka huffed. “It’s in a saucepan on heat, what else are you meant to do?”

Grabbing another saucepan set aside for Desco’s white chocolate, he filled it with water under the tap, dropped a plastic bowl in and shoved that on another burner for them. “There. Put the chocolate in that bowl.”

“Huh.” Fuka stared into it, not that she’d admit any fault with her own method. “Good thing I bought all that extra chocolate for later.”

“Next time let’s melt marshmallows in too!” Desco cheered.

So long as they were the ones washing up the resultant mess, “Knock yourselves out.” He returned to see how the un-denting had gone, passing by that blue-haired girl he nearly didn’t even notice busying away silently. Pausing, “What are you making?” he was actually interested to ask.

She turned aside to let him see the bowl of extra-thick double cream and a plate she was currently crushing up some dark flecks that smelt of vanilla on.

Given the empty tub of cream and packet of vanilla beans on the side, “Did you make that all from scratch yourself?”

She nodded, the bunny held between her elbows nodding along with her.

“That... smells really good.” Her bowl of pale golden batter was all ready too beside her moulds like she lived in some bubble immune to the rest of the kitchen.

“Usagi... will give you some,” her stuffed rabbit spoke very quietly.

“Thank you,” Fenrich said, stepping away from the surreal experience back into the familiar chaos of the rest of the kitchen.

He chose to deviate most importantly to the unattended taiyaki cooking on one of the stoves, taking the nearly over-cooked bottom halves off the heat to look around for the owner. Seeing the chopped bodies of cooked sardines lying ready beside though was answer enough, and with a fond huff Fenrich picked up the first to lay inside the centre of the abandoned taiyaki on their owner’s behalf.

Continuing through the others, he at least had the entertainment of watching Valvatorez trying to keep Laharl from overfilling his moulds with an unnecessary amount of bright red batter – Had the kid just picked food colouring for his filling? Dear Lord. But all those E-numbers would explain one or two things – whilst juggling with keeping Etna from eating all the sweets she’d bought to fill hers with straight from the packet.

After arduous victory, at least for now, Valvatorez seemed to finally remember his own taiyaki with quite the panicked start. The relief that washed through him at seeing Fenrich stood over them made Fenrich smirk slightly, glad as Valvatorez came up at his side. “Thank you, Fenrich.”

“I’m sure there’s some wider lesson to be learnt here about not taking care of the kids at the expense of yourself, if only you were able to grasp it,” Fenrich snarked fondly, laying in the final sardine. “I’ve finished filling them. Do you want to pour over the top batter and close the moulds?”

“Ah, yes!” Valvatorez enthused, taking back the reins from Fenrich. “What filling are you making? Your favourite, I presume?”

“Aside from those cheese ones I made for the demonstration I haven’t actually had a chance to make any of my own,” he admitted, supposing he might as well also admit, “I’ve never had a favourite filling actually. I’ve always just satisfied myself with whatever is convenient.”

“Well, perhaps all that will change today when you taste my iwashiyaki!”

Fenrich chuckled. “Perhaps it will...”

After another half an hour of cooking and chaos, and one triggering of the smoke alarm, finally the call went up, “Go wash your hands, children! Fenrich and I will set up the feast outside!”

“I get no choice in assisting you, hm?” Fenrich play-snarked as he picked up the first trays of taiyaki to carry out to the large, family picnic table.

Valvatorez chuckled behind him, bringing bowls of fruit and vegetables to go with them. “You agreed to stay, Fenrich. As a proud and noble instructor’s assistant I’m afraid this is your job description now.”

“I knew I should have read the terms and conditions more closely.”

He was soon placed on herding duty instead, keeping the starving and troublesome kids inside as Valvatorez finished arranging the food outside with far too much fastidiousness. Still, when he was finally called to let them all run out Fenrich could appreciate the real effort Valvatorez had gone to piling up every person’s taiyaki, appetising or disaster, into one great mountain at the centre of the table, all surrounded by tastefully arranged plates of salad, each one unique and tailored to each child’s tastes from memory. Before the whole thing ended up a god-awful mess they’d be the ones cleaning up, perhaps too swept up in such a warm smell of food and late afternoon sunshine, Fenrich pulled out his phone to take a photo as the kids started digging in.

But of all things when he came over to show it, Valvatorez merely clucked his tongue. “You’re not in it, Fenrich.”

His amber eyes widened for a second, but then he huffed, “Fine,” climbing up on the end of one of the benches and switching the camera to selfie-mode.

“Everyone say ‘Sardine’!” Valvatorez called.

It was met with a mix of full-mouthed compliance and ‘hell no’s that made for the most graceless photo possible, but what better could you expect from this lot?

“What’s wrong, bro?” Zeroken asked the hesitating Emizel beside him, hand outstretched to the mountain but no taiyaki on his plate yet. “Don’t you want any?”

“I don’t wanna pick one of Val’s sardine ones,” Emizel muttered, glancing aside to see if anyone heard him.

Indeed, just about the only identifiable ones were Laharl’s burnt, red, probably toxic ones. Fenrich could take a guess the slightly pink and orangey ones were strawberry and carrot respectively, and a few others were leaking burnt honey or chocolate, but the rest really were a mystery dip.

He watched in utter disbelief as Valvatorez took one of the demonic red ones from the pile, daintily biting off the tail to chew and grimace slightly as he did so. “Laharl, these are... Yeah...” Valvatorez decided on.

“Haaahahaha! Just as I planned! Now no one else will want to eat them so I get to have them all to myself!”

“Please, go right ahead,” Seraphina said, picking off one to throw onto Laharl’s plate, following by a barrage of others from everyone else trying to cleanse the mountain of their taint, as Laharl laughed again.

“Ow! Usalia burnt her tongue on the jelly one, plip...” she said, sticking out the poor, injured thing in a ‘blep’.

“They’re gummy bears,” Etna said; “it was too much fun watching their little bodies melt as they cooked.”

Killia froze in the middle of his mouthful, inhaling with deep force. “Who made these vanilla cream ones? They’re incredible.”

“Usagi did...” a small voice said, and when Fenrich looked down he found a new, perfectly-formed taiyaki had found its way onto his plate. Fuck was Killia right; this was the first time heaven had ever been tasted inside of a simple, pastry fish.

“Ooh, I think I got a vanilla one!” Rutile cheered, biting in fiercely before coming to a crashing stop. “No, it’s cheese...”

“Though the presentation was impeccable,” Kurtis mentioned, “I can’t help thinking anyone with an ounce of common sense would have divided the taiyakis into separate sweet and savoury piles. Just a small thought from someone with a mouth full of sardines and strawberries.”

“Nonsense, sardines go with everything!” Valvatorez asserted.

“No, they really don’t,” Fenrich tried to break to him, hoping he could maybe transition from vanilla through cheese or carrot before- Nope, straight to sardine as well. “Oh God...”

“So are you going to replace your bed with a double bed soon, Valzy?” Fuka asked, while Desco chased down one of Kurtis’ spinach, garlic and red pepper Spanish taiyakis with fierce amounts of water.

“Double bed? Whatever for?”

Fuka sighed like Fenrich silently did. “You’re really lucky we’re here to help you.”

“De-Desco will help you achieve S-rank support with Mr. Fenfen! Once her mouth stops burning...”

“In return,” Fuka continued before Valvatorez’s naivety had even had a chance to catch up, “you have to make me the maid of honour at your wedding to Fenfen.”

“Wedding?!” Now Valvatorez had caught up.

“Let’s see,” Fuka continued without hesitation or mercy, “Emizel can be the page boy-”

“Huh?” he asked, making the critical mistake of looking away from where he was busy shoving a carrot taiyaki into Zeroken’s mouth, receiving a sardine one shoved into his open mouth in return.

“Killia can do all the catering.” The lad in question looked up, as dumb as Valvatorez apparently about what was going on. “Seraphina can be the ring-bearer.”

“Desco will be the pallbearer!” Desco added cheerfully, causing Kurtis to choke.

“Lass, please stop planning a wedding that Fenrich and I haven’t even agreed to yet.”

“Exactly, ‘yet’!” Fuka seized upon.

“It’s good practice for her,” Fenrich began, “since she’ll be planning a lot when she’s older and forever a bridesmaid.”

The few kids old enough to understand the joke let out some ‘Ooooh’ noises, and Fuka looked ready to throw down, but at the loud yell of, “Sardine!” from Valvatorez everyone flinched back, silenced. “I finally found one of my sardine ones,” he mused happily at a much quieter volume, setting off group-wide facepalms and groans.

~DOOD~

“Is she going to make herself useful and come by to change the dressing?” Fenrich asked as he switched off the bathroom light, coming back into the bedroom. Valvatorez was already in his pyjamas, sweet sardreams plushie ready on his pillow, but was currently sat up with his trousers pulled down to one knee to inspect his bandaged thigh.

“Artina? Yes, she said she’d continue coming by to check on my recovery; she needed to come do her monthly check-ups on the kids soon anyway.” Seeing how close he could poke to the wound before it hurt unbearably, Valvatorez missed Fenrich’s scornful scowl about the prospect. “She said I ought to receive more blood transfusions as well while I’m recovering, but honestly I feel fine.”

“You’re having more of my blood,” Fenrich said as he sat on his own sleeping mat alongside the bed, “even if I have to sneak it into your food to make you.”

Valvatorez raised his head with a frown, and a silence that amounted to ‘We shall see’ in response, before he returned to inspecting his bandages.

“Hey, um...” Fenrich knew how weird it was for him to start a sentence so uncertainly but, “I already apologised to Kurtis. I’m sorry,” he admitted, bowing forward where he sat cross-legged, “for... trying to kill you, and taking advantage of your trust in me. I thought you were an idiot for being so trusting of me considering my real intentions, but I was the one who was an idiot for trusting what Carter said.”

“Thank you, Fenrich,” Valvatorez nodded, pulling up his pyjamas. “I can’t help being glad you did though, or else we never would be here together right now.” Fenrich shook his head at such moronic optimism, following Valvatorez’s lead and laying down finally. The bedside light went off, but those poorly-drawn curtains flooded the room with enough moonlight to continue making out one another’s faces. Fenrich was going to offer to draw them but, “Will you tell me one thing, in return?” Valvatorez asked.

“What?”

“Why did you stay?”

Ugh, it wasn’t going to be an easy payment after all. “I don’t know, it simply... felt right. I acted with my heart, not my brain. As for why I feel that way...” He inhaled, searching. “I don’t know. This place is...”

“Where you would’ve wanted to grow up?” Valvatorez suggested. “That’s what I’ve always tried to make it, the place I never had as a child.”

Fenrich stared through the palely illuminated darkness at such a vulnerable admission but a face that made it so calmly. “Are the rumours about you true? That you’ve really been on the streets all by yourself since the day you were born?”

“I don’t know about ‘since the day I was born’,” Valvatorez admitted, “but as far back as my memories reach to when I was 4 or 5, yes. I had no family, no schooling, no home. Not until I fell ill and all this began.”

“How did you survive?”

“I really couldn’t say,” he said with some amusement. “The will to live, I suppose. Spirit, fortitude and a good heart.” While Fenrich mused on that Saturday morning cartoon revelation, “I used to go to libraries, to cinemas, to the windows of houses and schools to observe all those things others did I never had the chance to,” Valvatorez continued. “I wanted to live to try them all one day: Family picnics, video game tournaments, karaoke nights-”

“Please tell me you don’t have karaoke nights here,” Fenrich grimaced at the mere thought.

“You know, it’s been a while since the last – I’ll put one on the calendar!”

Fenrich could only groan, and hope he learnt his lesson one day; his ears could already hear the torturous sounds of Emizel and Zeroken doing rap duets together. “You’re strong, to give them everything you never had and simply be happy for them,” he said though in a soft tone. Valvatorez somehow managed to cock his head even whilst lying on his side with it pressed into a pillow. “So, you like trying new things?”

“Always! The exercise of one’s curiosity keeps one young and psychologically flexible.”

Fenrich chuckled _that_ was the lead-in he had to work with as he pushed himself up from his own bed, moving to the side of Valvatorez’s. He expected the confusion in those dark eyes, only glinting red where the moonlight touched them right now, and was glad Valvatorez propped himself up on one elbow to make this easier.

That pale skin was still cool as Fenrich rested one hand on a forearm, leaning in his face. Valvatorez leant in too with innocence, before a widening of his eyes made obvious he’d realised what was happening. Fenrich waited, allowing him the chance to pull away, but when Valvatorez made the consenting gesture of moving forward slightly he took on the remaining task, completing the distance between their lips. His press was soft, and his hand squeezed that forearm gently in reassurance as Valvatorez froze so nervously, until small lips began pressing back. They were trembling, frail and nervous, but it felt so right a strength soon surged into the kiss. Quickly becoming almost hungry, Valvatorez’s hand tangled itself into the thick nape of Fenrich’s hair and held him there. Fenrich himself wasn’t done until he had taken that bottom lip between his teeth to suck, pulling it with him for a moment when he finally retreated.

Valvatorez’s blush was pink even in the white moonlight, and after a frozen moment he startled into a new posture with a hand covering his lower face and almost guilty expression cowering behind it.

Fenrich chuckled slightly, licking the sweet taste of toothpaste from his lips.

Valvatorez then managed to find a way to take it even further, yanking up his bedclothes over his head. Fenrich checked the door was shut, and all the kids were presumably asleep beyond it. But still it took a long minute before that head poked out again, covers pulled all the way up to right underneath his mouth, as Valvatorez asked, “A-Are my lips meant to tingle like this? Why do I still feel the spectre of yours on them even now?”

“Was that your first kiss?” Fenrich asked, obvious as it was, just to tease.

Valvatorez nodded, sinking beneath the covers fully once again like a child.

The crown of his black hair remained exposed, and Fenrich settled his own head against it. The hand of Valvatorez’s still exposed to pull up the covers he also clasped, soothingly rubbing over the knuckles as it quivered happily.

His soft breathing and warmth did their job, soon lulling the tired Valvatorez to sleep, however much Fenrich would have liked to spend this night together. Gently pushing back the covers so he wouldn’t suffocate himself, the silliest of smiles was on Valvatorez’s face, pressed up against his stuffed sardine. “Val...” Fenrich tutted, pulling back before he disturbed whatever sweet sardreams the man was having.

Laying back on his own bed, Fenrich stared up at the bat-shaped lampshade above that had watched the whole thing. He raised his own hand to his mouth, not daring to touch it in case that tingling sensation was brushed away. He clenched the hand up into a fist instead, trying to stop its quivering excitement, before turning onto his side away from Valvatorez to hide the daft grin on his face.

~DOOD~

For a not insignificantly injured person, “Morning time, everyone! The sun is rising and so should you be!” Valvatorez sure was not taking it easy nor letting anyone else do so.

Fenrich groaned, burying his face into his pillow as many of the kids were doubtless doing at the sound of the ass o’clock wake-up call walking up and down the upstairs corridor. But Valvatorez never let up until every single person was awake, Fenrich included, so what else was there to drag himself off his sleeping mat and stumble out onto the landing in his sleeping shorts, trying to tame his mane of hair with his fingers.

“Dammit,” Emizel was first to the doorframe of his room, rubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie pulled up over his wrist, “can’t we ever get one freakin’ lie-in in this place? You were only shot yesterday, Val.”

“Incorrect! That altercation took place at ten minutes before midnight, and thus it has been two days since I was shot!”

Kurtis appeared behind Emizel, patting the shorter kid on the shoulder. “When Artina comes to change his dressing we’ll get her to order Val to stay in bed tomorrow morning.”

“Heh, I like the way you think.”

“Absolutely not!” Valvatorez declared, even punching the air in front of him. “My health is absolutely fine, as is all of yours, so there’s no reason for anyone to be lazing around in bed.”

The two sensible boys groaned in sync, trudging forward and briefly stopping at the door to Zeroken’s room so Emizel could yell, “I’m eating the last of the chocolate cereal, Zeroken!” before he suddenly sprinted for the stairs. Zeroken tore out of his room only seconds later, nearly knocking over Kurtis who just sighed at the younger boys.

The three younger, cute and well-behaved girls trotted out of their rooms without complaints, yawning or pulling up the shoulders of their over-sized pyjamas as they marched downstairs.

“Laharl! Etna!” Valvatorez made a point of calling into the most unruly room, receiving a rather considerable number of expletives in reply.

Fenrich watched them slump their way out of their room half a minute later though at the same time the other remaining kids all appeared, lest they be subjected to the same fate. “If you did your job properly,” Seraphina huffed at Fenrich, while Killia seemed motivated enough at the prospect of breakfast to head downstairs, “we could all start getting some more sleep in the mornings.”

“‘My job’?”

“Keeping Val busy in bed,” she tutted obviously, rolling her eyes as she walked away too.

Valvatorez got his wagging finger ready to lecture. “Seraphina-”

“So what did happen in that room last night?” Fuka butted in though. “You don’t normally shut your door, Valzy.”

“That’s merely because Fenrich values his privacy,” Valvatorez said, which was true but Fenrich had never actually told him. “Nothing happened aside from a little, boring adult chatter,” That was what he was going to call it? “and us sleeping.”

“In the same bed?”

“No, in separate beds.”

“After you had sex, right?”

While Valvatorez actually took a comical step back he was so scandalised, “Lass, despite your own hopeless fate, do try and at least be a good sibling by not talking about such things in front of your little sister,” Fenrich said rather diplomatically, if he did say so himself, nodding to Desco.

Who was of course busy playing on her Switch already, not even looking up as she replied, “There’s no need to keep secrets; Desco knows what happens when you leave Pokémon at the Daycare Centre together.”

He didn’t even know if she was being euphemistic with that or not. “Nothing of _that sort_ happened between us last night, okay?” Valvatorez made clear as Fenrich walked up to his side ready to end this ridiculous conversation and head downstairs.

Fuka frowned very doubtingly at them, before finally sighing. “I guess with Valzy’s injury you probably had to restrain your burning passions for another night.” The two men shared a dry glance at the girl’s romantic flights of fancy. “But mark my words!” Fuka suddenly declared with fire. “I’ll make you realise your feelings for each other and get you two together before our dad comes to collect us! You just wait!” And with her piece said, “Come on, Desco,” the two sisters descended downstairs as well.

“She really isn’t going to give up,” Fenrich observed with a wearied sigh.

“Her assumptions about the stage our relationship has reached were inconsistent in every declaration she made,” Valvatorez had more issue with, thoughtfully holding his chin.

Fenrich took the opportunity to slip his own hand along that jawline to join it, tilting Valvatorez’s face up to his to kiss. Though sweet and light, befitting of the time of day, they both let it linger for quite a moment as they pressed forward pleasurably against one another, before Valvatorez eventually pulled back with a little noise of satisfaction.

“So, how long should we continue to pretend nothing’s going on between us?” Fenrich asked, unable not to grin wolfishly.

Valvatorez grinned too, showing his canines. “Oh, a little while longer yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They continue to keep it to themselves for a while, enjoying it greatly. When they finally decide to come clean and need to decide how, Fenrich suggests they do it by announcing they’re getting married to give the kids the maximum shock possible. They laugh, but discussing the idea realise that, although it’s still too soon right now, both are quite surprisingly okay with the prospect of getting married one day. It may not be the most grandiose of romantic proposals, but it sure gives them something to shock the kids with the next morning.  
> Because there’s no kind of family like two gay dads and their twelve adopted juvenile delinquents. 
> 
> So, I've got more Disgaea fic in the works, doods (mostly canon-based ValFen) you can look forward to if you've enjoyed this. (In the meantime I recommend [ ‘The New Teacher, the Tyrant’](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12723226/1/The-New-Teacher-The-Tyrant) over on FF.net as it helped inspire this fic and is a really good gen _Disgaea_ fic. Other great Disgaea stuffs that helped inspire this fic were Lemon-Wedge's Dad AU artworks and of course all of the art by Nami, the queen of Valfen)


	6. DLC 1 - Four Demons and an Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By request (of, like, one person but whatever. I know all you secret readers out there wanted this too, dood) this story is getting some DLC! Since it’s included free of charge I guess this makes this the Complete+ version of the story, lol.
> 
> So if you wondered about when Artina saw Valvatorez naked, how Carter’s redevelopment plans were thwarted, why Void and Majorita have a vengeance against the group home or what Christo was like when he was a resident, then that’s all here! 
> 
> These three chapters tell the story of how every child came into Val’s care, and how that even begun in the first place; it’s like D4’s Time Leap scenario but without Nagi saying ‘war’ every other line!
> 
> They’re also LONG chapters. Like really long. Long enough to be separate fics by themselves, but I’m including them here since they’re a part of this very specific AU. Because of this, the other two chapters won’t be coming out very quickly, so take your time with them.
> 
> Anyway, stick around to the end of the third and final DLC chapter to get your free, bonus characters!
> 
> (Once again, I am not a medical expert when it comes to all the stuff in this part and the following two. But unless you are, hopefully it all sounds plausibly convincing!)

“Hello?”

Pink...

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

Pink hair... framed by a halo of light...

“You have to stay with me! Stay awake!”

Gentle hands resting lightly...

A sore rubbing directly on bones, fingertips resting on too thin skin.

“I need to get you back to my clinic so I can treat you. Can you stand?”

His ragged breathing, throat dry and thick.

“I think we’re going to have to walk. Come on now, lean on me.”

Arms sliding carefully under his, lifting him into empty air. Moving as they urge, dizzy blurring of gravel ground and brick walls.

“Close your eyes if you need to. I’ll lead you.”

Blissful, gentle darkness, his weight leant and feet trudging forward.

“You need to stay awake, okay? I know! You can help me decide what to make for dinner tonight. I was thinking of doing something with sardines...”

“Ugh.” A noise, his throat swallowing thickly.

“Don’t you like sardines? You shouldn’t be so fussy, Mr. Weirdo; sardines are very good for you. And they taste so nice in a little tomato sauce with cucumber slices...”

The words blurring, everything else hazy, but his feet walking slowly forward nonetheless.

~DOOD~

A grey ceiling, plain sheets, half a dozen other empty beds bathed in slanted light.

Valvatorez struggled up onto his elbows, refusing to let the searing protests of his body stop him from righting himself against his bed’s lone pillow and headboard. Blinking away his unfocused vision as his left hand turned over, the curious thing in its back stayed in place, as did the tube connected to an empty medical bag hung on a stand, a residue of pale yellowish staining its inside. His right hand touched his chest, skin stretched over the bottom of his rib cage pulling sorely. Lifting the sheets, there was nothing but bare skin up and down. He flushed, looking around the room with a new urgency.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re awake!”

Valvatorez pulled his gaze away from his faded yellow backpack in the corner to scowl at the offensively cheerful woman approaching his bedside so casually, seating herself on the edge even.

“Here, let me take this out.” Her hands reached out to remove the thing attached to the back of his hand. “How do you feel?”

“I’m naked.” His voice sounded awful, and his throat hurt it was so dryly raw.

She dared to look amused. “Your clothes are clean, if you’re strong enough to put them back on.” She set to taking down the empty medical bag and tube. “I would imagine you are, considering how you tried to attack me earlier this morning.”

He curiously frowned in the direction of the windows, recognising dusk from dawn, before he turned the frown on her. “I attacked you?”

“You were delirious but don’t worry, you were too weak to do any harm to me. I’m just happy you’re finally lucid for the first time since you came here.” He watched her set aside all she’d collected into some sort of tray before returning to sit on his bedside. “How do you feel?”

Valvatorez looked down at himself again, feeling his slightly laboured breathing, his nauseous wooziness and his snarling stomach for the first time. And that felt like just the beginning of a fuzzy iceberg of symptoms he couldn’t even put a name or location to right now. “What’s wrong with me?” he murmured sharply at her.

Her hand reached out, brushing aside his black hair to face the full force of that scowl. Gauntness had made his face longer, more angular, and only enhanced the dark anger in his expression. “I’m Artina, a nurse.” Her hand turned, pressing its back to his scowling forehead. “What’s wrong with you is quite serious, I’m afraid. Are you feeling up to discussing it right now?”

“Tell me,” he spat.

“All right.” She drew back her hand to fold both in her lap. “Do you know much about physiology?” He continued glaring past his bangs. “I’ll try and explain this as simply as possible then.” One of her delicate fingers reached out, indicating the IV insert patch on the back of his hand. “Blood is composed of cells, like red and white blood cells, which are carried by blood plasma. Blood plasma is made,” Her finger travelled across to his abdomen, indicating without touching, to the middle slightly to one side, “by your liver, predominately. The plasma is what carries the nutrients from the food you eat around to the various parts of your body that need them.”

His silent glare continued.

“Your liver also makes bile,” Artina continued, “which breaks down fat in the small intestine and carries away waste. It’s also involved in the storage and release of glucose, which gives your body energy, and iron, which allows your blood to circulate oxygen properly. The liver also has some functions in the immune system.” Her hand now retreated, the full blue of her eyes meeting with his. “I’m afraid your liver isn’t functioning properly anymore; I did a liver function test while you were asleep to confirm it. All of those functions I just described aren’t being performed properly by your body therefore.”

“Fix it,” he commanded.

“I can’t.”

A growl rose in his throat. “That’s your job!”

She shook her head. “It can’t be fixed.” His eyes grew so wide, staring with such intensity as to almost be accusation. “You can live with this though. It’s not a death sentence.”

His silence was sullen, no gladder.

Tilting her head slightly, Artina’s soft smile grew ever so slightly. “You’ve been trying to regain weight, haven’t you? If you’re living on the streets I imagine you’ve had to take food where you can find it, and have been eating large amounts at once? Particularly carbohydrate- and fat-rich foods?”

Disgruntled, Valvatorez made a head movement that might have been a nod.

“That won’t work for your condition,” she explained. “Without proper bile production your digestive system simply can’t break down food as it once could. With a more suitable diet you can manage this condition and maintain a level of physical health that will let you participate in almost all activities anyone without it could.” She reached into her clothes, extracting a folded sheet of paper, although Valvatorez could only puzzle where from in such a skimpy outfit. “Since your digestion is impaired you need to make the maximum use of what you have by eating only nutrient-rich foods. But on the plus side you also get to eat a small amount of easy, calorie-rich food to make up your daily energy needs!” She held out the list towards him, remaining there patiently as he refused to do more than glare at it. Eventually Artina simply set it to one side on the small bedside table with the same patient smile, folding her hands in her lap again. “More importantly, so as not to overtax your digestive system and because your liver can’t store glucose as effectively, you need to eat little and often. You also need to be very careful about losing blood, as you won’t have the plasma left to transport what you need otherwise. You should receive regular blood plasma transfusions if possible, or at least general blood transfusions failing that.”

He looked to the tray the empty medical bag had been cleaned away into, then back.

“I hope you’re not squeamish about blood transfusions, Mr. Vampire,” Artina teased lightly, before leaning forward earnestly a little. “If you’re going to look after your health, the thing you truly need most of all is stability, so you need to get off the streets. I can-”

“‘Get off the streets’?!” he scorned darkly. “Do you have no idea who I am?!”

Artina blinked innocently.

“My name is Valvatorez, the Street Tyrant!” he quite proudly announced, trying to swing out an arm in emphasis that made him stagger unsteadily to one side where he sat. “I can’t simply leave the streets!”

She only looked on steadily at him. “Why not?”

“‘Why not’?!” he repeated in complete derision. “Are you really that feeble-minded, woman?! Of course I can’t!”

“Why not?” Artina persisted calmly in the face of his untamed anger. “What happens if you do?”

“What... What happens?” Valvatorez came to a stop, the one blinking now as he stared at her.

His eyes were so wide as Artina reached out, laying her hands atop his on the sheets. “The recovery process for this won’t just be physical. Whenever anyone receives a diagnosis like this you also have to grieve for the life you’re not going to be able to live now.” His hands froze up under hers, tensing into a shape more like an animal’s claws. “I know the prospect of change is scary, that you have a life you want to be able to continue living as before. But you have to understand that’s not possible anymore. I’ll be here to help you with finding a new life that you can live safely and healthily, so rely on me when it’s hard.” His hands tried to flinch away, but hers held onto them. “You can make this change. You were so strong, walking back here with me in that state, and having survived so long already with this. I know you can-”

“S-Stop this nonsense!” He tried to wrench his hands from hers. “A Street Tyrant can’t leave the streets that give him his name!”

“Why not?” her patience asked again, hands holding firmly around his struggling ones.

“Because I’m the Street Tyrant Valvatorez! That’s who I am!”

“And who are you if you stop being the ‘Street Tyrant’?”

He came a shaky stop, the anger in his frame turning to a quivering. Even as his hands trembled though, trying to surge with anger until the weakness of his body defeated it, hers were firm around them. Eventually they stopped trying, settling into simply trembling. “...Valvatorez?” his voice quietly guessed.

“Don’t you know who that is?” She smiled, verging on amusement but not quite.

His long, dark bangs covered his face as he let it bow in front of her, staring at his own weak and pale arms. “I...” Blinking a few times, he settled into the more comfortable darkness of closing his eyes completely. “...Perhaps not,” he muttered.

She chuckled gently. “Then we’re both in the same boat, aren’t we?” His curious red eyes opened to her. “I don’t know you very well either right now, Mr. Weirdo. But I’d also like to get to know you better; I think being friends with you would be fun.”

“‘Friends’?”

“You’re not going to tell me you don’t know that word, are you?” Artina teased.

“I...” His gaze fell, looking away. He soon returned to a more comfortable frown, supposing aloud, “We can all become wrapped up in being the person others think we are...”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But you’re free to be whomever you want. We always are, even if we often forget that.”

Valvatorez did turn his frown on her briefly, but before long it fell into a hollowness instead, staring distantly into the space of his lap.

“I’ll be here to help while you recover and find what you need, okay?” Her hands squeezed his, feeling them try to pull free once again on instinct but weakly submitting in the end. “You can stay here as long as you need.”

He neither resisted or protested, remaining still in his medical bed.

“Since you’re free to become whomever you want now,” Artina teased cheerfully, “why don’t you start by becoming someone who likes sardines?”

“Sardines?” He finally scowled at her again.

“Yes. Sardines are full of the sorts of nutrients you need, and they cleanse your blood as well as boosting your immune system! They’re an ideal food for you to start eating if you want to recover.”

When he glared like that, she only giggled now.

Disconnecting their hands, “I made something for when you woke up,” Artina wandered out of the room briefly, returning with a plate, “so don’t be ungrateful and eat up now.” The plate was set down on his bedside table, and Valvatorez couldn’t have stared at it more disdainfully. “Go on. Why don’t you start with the sardines?”

He glared at the small pile of vegetable sticks, wholemeal flatbread, glass of milk and most of all the little pile of cleaned and prepared sardines on the plate. He glared at her, and the slender fork arranged so neatly on the plate to eat with. But as he glared she only smiled patiently back, until he looked at the sardines again.

Still trembling, softening just slightly, Valvatorez reached out for his first sardine.

~DOOD~

The pane was as cold as the grey, lifeless streets being pelted by heavy summer rain outside, and his body shivered beneath his white shirt. But still Valvatorez rested his forehead against the window, eyes numbly staring past the raindrops to nothing at all.

“I’m sorry I took so long.” He didn’t react at all. “I’m ready to perform your plasma transfusion now, Mr. Vampire.”

He finally turned without taking his forehead from the pane, sharp redness of his eyes pointed at her from behind the shadow of his hair.

“Thank you again for dealing with those other patients earlier,” Artina continued. “I wouldn’t have thought anyone with such wounds could have been so rowdy.”

“Of course they would be,” he scorned. “Putting a member of the Deathsaber gang in the same room as a Mystic Beast... You really are foolish, nurse.”

“But they both needed treatment!” she insisted, bringing over the transfusion equipment to him if he wasn’t going to move. “You can’t expect me to just leave them to bleed out or get sepsis.”

He tutted, turning away and letting her do as she wished preparing his arm for the transfusion.

“More and more people seem to be getting injured these days...” Artina sighed. “I worry if things will ever improve around here...”

“You may as well give up if that’s what you’re waiting for,” he found some amusement in her naivety. “The fighting has grown worse lately because of ‘King’ Krichevskoy’s death. Without anyone suitable to take his position and keep the overlords at peace, their gangs will continue to run rampant in such brutish fashion. The ‘Death King’ of the Death gang might have been a suitable replacement, but given he has other, hmhm, _occupations_ these days...”

She watched as he didn’t even flinch to have the end of the IV inserted, still looking elsewhere as if he couldn’t even feel such pain anymore. “I do hope something is done about it, before someone takes advantage of the situation. People only turn to the gangs because no one provides them with the stability and safety they need. If someone could only help them then the fighting would calm down. But if the city continues to ignore them and blame them for their own problems like this...”

His head turned slightly, staring neutrally as she set the plasma flowing into the tube. “You’re not quite as idiotic as I first thought,” Valvatorez said, a smirk cutting through behind his bangs. “You are still utterly idealistic, however.”

She couldn’t face him, only fussing with the transfusion equipment as she admitted, “I know the city doesn’t care; you don’t need to tell me, Mr. Tyrant.” Artina brought a smile back to her face though with willpower, attempting to implore him with it. “But I believe we can’t allow cynicism to stop us from trying to help one another, no matter how hard the situation may be!”

“Fool,” he muttered, hiding from the brightness of her smile.

The plasma was flowing nicely now, and Valvatorez didn’t look as if he’d be moving from the cold sill of the window any time soon. Artina glanced back, but with the clinic room empty, she allowed herself to perch on the nearest of the perfectly made beds. After hesitating politely, “Mr. Tyrant, may I ask you something?”

He half-turned towards her, a side-eyed gaze waiting for her to spit it out.

“Why have you never joined any of the gangs? How did you survive on the streets without them?”

“I’m strong,” he huffed simply. “I don’t need their false comradeship. My own proud and noble fortitude is all I require to survive.”

Artina hesitated again politely, this time frowning over his eccentric assertions, but folding her hands in her lap instead she opted for, “Do you have any family?”

“None,” he answered too easily, she felt. “From my very first memories, when I was 4 or 5, I was already out on the streets by myself.”

“I can’t believe anyone could just abandon a child that young...” she said. “But I’ve seen it happen too many times around here anyway.”

Valvatorez had no interest in her soft-hearted lamenting, preferring the coldness of the rain outside. But when she stayed silent this time, “...I’ve been attempting to recall,” he mentioned lowly. “The person I was before I became only known as the ‘Street Tyrant’.”

“And?”

“I am someone who never has what everyone else has.”

Her curious expression fell into sympathetic sadness again, “Mr. Tyrant...”

“I have never had a home, family, friends,” Valvatorez continued. “No education, no job, no purpose in life. You tell me to just find these things as if it’s so simple, nurse, but that’s not the kind of creature I am.”

“You’re not a ‘creature’, Mr. Silly,” she teased more lightly.

“Hm, you’re the only one who thinks that.”

So sharply dismissed, Artina found she could only fall silent again as she considered the man curled up so dark and tight at the cold window pane, back to her once more. The pale plasma flowed steadily on into his even paler skin, and he seemed as unfazed by its help as the pain of the insertion. “...Well, you’re not a creature to me, Mr. Tyrant – You’re my friend.”

He perked tensely, and Artina had moved to stand beside him when he dared consider turning away from the rain outside. “...Friend?”

“So you see, you can find these things,” she enthused, clasping her hands together cheerfully. “The only thing that will stop you is giving up.”

“Must you always spout such twee platitudes?” he grumbled.

“I only say things I truly believe,” she said, and Valvatorez rolled his eyes. “You already know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need, and you can always come back if you start struggling again. I can continue to give you the necessary transfusions regularly as well, every week ideally.”

“Each week?” His face pulled into displeasure, looking down at the IV feeding into his arm.

“You might be able to get by without them if you really take good care of yourself,” Artina judged, “but to be on the safe side I’ll order plasma for a weekly transfusion for you, so make sure you come by, okay?”

“‘Order’?” Valvatorez blinked at her curiously. “Are you paying for this?”

“My clinic receives charitable funding from the city and a few organisations, but I have to use that to pay for all my own supplies, as well as my own living costs since I live here.” She indicated the upstairs where she had a tiny, two-room flat. “I wish I had the funding to start a food bank as well to help prevent people ending up here in the first place, but with the fighting only getting worse...” Her hands looked more as if they were held together in prayer now, her expression fallen.

Valvatorez frowned past his hair at her, the red of his eyes piercing, searching.

“Um... Why are you staring me like that, Mr. Weirdo?” She cocked her head, bemused. “Also, you could really do with a haircut...”

“Why do you help others whom you have no good reason to? Why am I your friend?” he said, still frowning at her.

“I help people because I can’t stand to see them hurting, I suppose,” Artina answered, unsure as if thinking about it for the first time herself too. “No one deserves to suffer, and if I can help them then I don’t mind how hard I have to work.” Since his expression remained unchanged, “And you’re my friend because I like being with you, Mr. Tyrant. You’re so interesting, and I want to get to know you better. I was really impressed by your strength, and how well you’ve taken all this, even if I can see you’re still a little lost. I...” she trailed off, biting her lip slightly.

“What?”

As if it was improper to admit it, “Normally my patients are only here for as long as I need to treat them, and I rarely have any time for myself to socialise. I know... what it’s like to live a very solitary life. I don’t mind it,” she wanted to make clear cheerfully, “and I’m happy with the way I live. But I also end up with no one to call a true friend because of it. So, I guess you’re my friend... because I want to be your friend, Mr. Tyrant,” Artina admitted awkwardly, crossing one leg in front of her and posing slightly as she smiled.

Bringing his legs down from the sill as he turned around properly, Valvatorez actually brushed back some of his hair slightly. “...My friend?”

“Am I allowed to be your friend, Mr. Street Tyrant?” Artina asked genuinely, smiling.

“I...” He blinked to a stop, staring at her.

She only cocked her head, waiting for his answer.

One of his hands twitched as if to reach forward before moving back as he turned aside awkwardly. Lips pressed together, canines worrying on his bottom one, Valvatorez looked again to check she was still honest about it before nodding. “Very well, we are friends!” he declared.

Artina laughed, covering her mouth politely with one hand. “You’re so earnest, Mr. Weirdo.”

“What? Why are you laughing, nurse?” he demanded petulantly.

She calmed herself, somewhat at least, in an effort to be respectful. “You really are such an interesting person to be friends with, Mr. Tyrant! I’m so happy.”

“This is friendship? Laughing at me, and telling me I need a haircut?” he muttered. “Your hair is even longer than mine.”

“I didn’t mean your ponytail,” she clarified. “And I understand you enjoy glowering at people from behind your bangs, but they’re getting to the point where it’s hard to even tell when you’re glowering, was what I actually meant.” Valvatorez reached up, examining his bangs as he held them aside and revealed a frowning pout beneath. “Anyway, what should we have for dinner?” Artina changed subject cheerfully. “I’m running low on groceries, but I made sure there’s a can of sardines left for you.”

He perked back up. “Perhaps that sardine pasta bake you made before?”

“Oh. I’m out of flour for the sauce,” she admitted. “And tomato sauce. And cheese.”

“Tch. I suppose sardine pizza is out of the question as well in that case...”

“There is pasta and vegetables though, if you don’t mind having it plain,” Artina offered.

He waved off that would be fine. “What will you be having?”

She blinked, before smiling as she made to walk away. “Oh, I ate at lunch, I’ll be all right.”

“Wait, you aren’t eating?” Valvatorez slid off the sill.

His approach made her halt, smile faltering slightly before she forced it back up. “There’s only enough sardines and vegetables left for one.”

“But you...” He glowered more darkly at her. “You tell me over and over to look after myself, yet this is how you look after yourself?”

“You’re my patient, I can’t let you go without,” Artina said.

“And you are my friend, I cannot allow you to go without either!”

She took a step back in mild surprise, especially with him being so physically dramatic about it.

“Attend to yourself before you attend to others – That is a key rule of caring for others, is it not?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“And it was you yourself who told me only yesterday that being underweight weakens the immune system!” he continued didactically. “What if you contract an infectious malady and pass it onto your patients? I cannot allow a friend to be so careless with their own health!”

“All right, Mr. Weirdo,” Artina sighed, hoping for a little calm. “But I can’t eat what’s not in the kitchen. And no,” she already pre-empted as he looked round at the window, “you are _not_ going out in that rain to scare some more groceries off some poor soul.”

“But-”

“No,” she scolded. “We’ll simply have to make what I have stretch far enough for two, if you’re going to insist.” Well, he was smiling again, even if there was something far too smugly victorious about it.

~DOOD~

“800HL an hour?! Are you crazy, lady?!”

“This is a medical establishment – Such rates for parking are entirely standard. And I _don’t_ appreciate your implication my demands are unreasonable when I’m only collecting what is fairly due.”

“There’s no way in hell I’m paying that – It’s daylight robbery!”

“I am _not_ a thief!” Artina was insisting hotly to the man presumably in ownership of the car parked outside of her clinic. “I am simply asking for what I am owed-!”

“Is there an issue?” Valvatorez enquired as he finally approached the scene closely enough to intervene, looking between them.

“Yeah, this crazy woman is trying to...” The man froze in his appeal, staring at Valvatorez in slowly dawning terror. “Y-You-! The S-Street Tyrant-!”

“Indeed I am,” Valvatorez answered peaceably.

“H-Here!” The man’s wallet came out so fast the leather could have caught fire, far more than 800HL pressed into Artina’s waiting hand.

His car was soon gone in a tyre-screeching flash. “You charge 800HL an hour for parking?” Valvatorez enquired.

“It’s what they charge at the hospital uptown,” she hotly defended, “and this is a medical establishment in just the same kind.” A dubious pursing of the lips appeared on his face, but in going to argue with the expression she realised, “Mr. Tyrant, your hair!”

Valvatorez brightened. “Indeed, I just had it cut!” He proudly showed off his new, shorter style.

“I only meant the bangs,” she said awkwardly. “You didn’t need to have your ponytail cut off as well.”

“Yes,” he admitted, touching the uncovered nape of his neck with the slightest regret. “But long, straight and untreated hair such as mine sells for quite the tidy sum. I had it cut off to pay for the haircut, and for... well...” He held out his money for her, far more than she currently held.

“I told you I don’t accept payment from my patients-!”

“This isn’t that,” he insisted softly, holding up a silencing hand. “It’s a charity donation so you can continue treating other patients. A-And so you can get a little closer to that food bank you want to start...”

Artina searched his face, for his sake ignoring the touch of pink across his cheeks, and though his gaze was turned aside it was honest. She couldn’t help but soften into a smile, “...Your face has rounded out nicely, Mr. Tyrant; you look younger for it,” accepting his donation gratefully.

“A-Ahh...” Valvatorez flustered, touching one cheek even he could feel was far less gaunt now. “I suppose I am feeling far better of late, all thanks to your excellent and attentive treatment of course! I will find a place of my own as soon as possible, but in the meantime...”

“Of course you can stay a little longer,” Artina guessed for him. “I’m very happy to have you here as my friend. And you’re still not quite done recovering yet.”

“I feel in perfect fettle!” Valvatorez insisted, even jumping and punching the air for emphasis.

“Still, you ought to spend a little more time recovering as a preventative measure.” He at least nodded to that. “That reminds me, it’s time for your plasma transfusion again this afternoon-”

“No!”

By now she only raised an eyebrow slightly at his physically dramatic outbursts. “No?”

“I have decided – I shan’t receive any more transfusions of any kind!”

“But Mr. Vampire-”

“You said to me that I would not be in need them if I took good enough care of myself,” Valvatorez said. “Every time I have a transfusion I am taking it away from someone else who likely does not have that option. Therefore it is my duty to take good enough care of myself, so I do not take needed resources away from others!”

“You’re not really...” There was too much fire in his eyes, she could see it. “I only said you ‘might’ be able to get by without them; I won’t let you endanger your health by refusing them unless you really are fit enough to go without them,” Artina laid down sternly.

He nodded. “And I’m certain if you test me I believe you’ll find I am indeed fit enough, no further transfusions will be necessary.”

“ _I_ will be the judge of that, Mr. Patient.” She tried to hold firm with him, she really did. But when he smiled so ingenuously compared to all the frowns and scowls she’d thought were all she would ever see, “...We’ll see how you go without one today.”

“Excellent! Time for lunch!” he declared, and when he led the way like that Artina could only fondly sigh and follow. “I found this new recipe for sardine pie we can attempt now we have flour once again.”

“Sardines again, Mr. Tyrant?”

“But of course – It was you who introduced me to their nutritional supremacy after all! A daily diet of them is certain to provide me all the strength necessary to avoid further transfusions.”

“It doesn’t quite...” Artina shook her head. “Yes, Mr. Weirdo...”

~DOOD~

A dull clatter.

Valvatorez’s opening eyes adjusted to the dimness of night in the clinic’s main room, frowning at the wall he faced-

A rattling, quiet but quick, glass on plastic.

Pausing cautiously, he judged it was safe to dart up to sitting as he listened to the noises coming from the other room.

Soft banging, like drawers being opened and closed in quick succession.

Throwing off his covers, Valvatorez stalked silently to the door, one with the darkness flooding the clinic. Steadying the door handle as he slowly depressed it, he waited for the subtle vibrations of footsteps to reach his own bare feet from the backroom before nodding to himself and throwing the door open. “Who’s there?!”

“Busted, Prince!”

“Crap! Run for it!”

“Hey!” Valvatorez had charged forward but got caught up around the unlit standing shelves as light feet ran not for the entrance or stairs but the bathroom. “Halt this instance!”

The bathroom door was thrown back into his face as he attempted to catch up, the blow staggering him before he flung it open with a bang as it hit the tiled walls. Only a single, red shoe was left, disappearing through the room’s window, the rest of its body falling to the ground outside with a swear.

He ran to the backroom’s window at the sound of escaping feet but the alley outside was nothing more than shadows and darkness. “Damn and blast!”

“Mr. Tyrant?”

Valvatorez turned to Artina’s face peering around the bottom of the stairs, uncertain but not afraid.

“You had intruders,” he explained, looking over the room’s ransacked contents for the first time. “I interrupted them but was unable to catch them, I apologise.”

She walked down into the room properly, the skimpiest of pyjamas covering about as much skin as her fuzzy pink socks, and as she turned the light on he could see she was smiling understandingly. “It’s not the first time; lots of people target clinics and pharmacies around here.” Her gaze went to the medication cabinets naturally, but blinked a few times to find them untouched. “Oh. What did they take?”

“Hmm... So far as I can tell,” he judged, pulling out drawers around the interrupted ones left open, “bandages, syringes, those horrible little things you hold down my tongue with...”

“Syringes?” Artina came over. “Drug addicts perhaps?”

“They were children.”

“Hm?”

Valvatorez gestured for her to come over to the bathroom, indicating its window. “Their voices were those of children, a female and a prepubescent male to be precise. They managed to escape through this window and likely came in that way as well.” He frowned, but with the heat of the late summer night it had seemed a fair risk at the time.

“Oh no...” Artina could only clasp her hands together, concerned face looking over the disruption again. “This won’t do. We need to help them.”

“Help your burglars?” he scorned slightly.

“They wouldn’t be stealing if they didn’t need help,” Artina appealed to him. “And the items they stole... I’m concerned about what they need them for.”

Valvatorez frowned, but when she was so earnestly caring as that, “...Fine. I will go and search for them in the morning,” he sighed but agreed.

“You will?” He wasn’t pleased about it, but turned aside sheepishly when her face lit up with that smile. “Thank you, Mr. Tyrant! And thank you for confronting them.”

“Had I been at my previous sharpness I would have apprehended them for you as well, but I’ve gotten rather out of practice while recovering here.” That lit his face up with a smile, albeit a far more sinister one. “You know, it’ll do me good to have a target to hunt once again...”

“You’re finding them so you can help them,” she reminded him.

He waved that off as trivial, already gleeful at the prospect.

~DOOD~

Valvatorez walked down the quiet road unhindered and barely observed, these streets the sort where anyone taking an interest in someone else’s business wasn’t in for a good time.

As the few remaining cheap cafés and businesses gave way to empty properties, so long abandoned they weren’t even marked for sale, he raised his gaze to a pair small legs and their red shoes dangling over one roof edge. Confronting that boarded up shop from the road below, “You up there!”

The legs stopped kicking lackadaisically in the hot sunshine, halting before being pulled back. Purple hair popped up with a scowl. “Who dares disturb the great Laharl?!”

A set of red pigtails popped up beside that, face turning to a frown as Valvatorez only chuckled darkly. “You were the intruders who broke into the clinic last night, correct?”

“Hah!” The shrimp of a boy pulled himself up on the roof edge and folded his arms, defiantly shirtless and grinning. “So what if we were? Come to get revenge, have you?”

“Indeed,” he answered. “That clinic belongs to my friend, and you misappropriated her property.”

While the red-haired face dawned with shock, “If you want it back you’ll have to defeat me to get it!”

“Um, Prince, I think that guy is-”

“Quiet! Etna, prepare the meteors!”

“‘Meteors’?” Valvatorez questioned as Etna did as told, disappearing from sight. “This promises to be exciting indeed...”

He watched quite fascinated as Laharl turned away for a moment, taking a ball of trash in one hand and a match in the other. With a daredevil striking of the match against his own forearm, Laharl dropped the burning match into the centre of the ball, hurling it overarm at speed.

The metal pipe tucked inside Valvatorez’s tattered coat flashed out in an instant, batting the now burning ‘meteor’ away effortlessly onto the tarmac.

“Haaahahahaha! Not bad!” Laharl commended. “You might even be worth making into my vassal.” Turning to Etna once more, this time he held up two matches in show before striking and dropping each into a trash ball. The first one lit had barely left his hand before its newspaper veins were alight, plastic wrappers buried inside smoking black as they hurtled through the air towards Valvatorez.

Again he struck both away with a single stroke, one hitting the kerb and disintegrating into smouldering debris. The second though, with a splintering crack, broke through the deceptively weak boards of the shop front.

Two sets of hands grabbed the roof edge, heads shooting out in panic. “Crap! Save the supplies!” Laharl declared, both disappearing in less than a moment.

“Hm?” Valvatorez assessed the shop front, breaking a large enough hole for himself to step through the already busted boards. The burning trash ball had landed on a sheet so dirty it was struggling to light, smoking and smouldering as he scooped it all up with the pipe end to fling back outside.

Frantic shoes skidded down stairs he couldn’t see as he looked around, taking in a showroom space where long-forgotten furniture and rubbish nestled around plain pillars and cobwebbed corners so thick they might as well have been curtained.

Laharl and Etna burst in from a backroom door, Laharl vaulting the broken counter before recognising Valvatorez’s presence and his indication where the trash ball had been removed to. Etna wound her way through a fortress of broken TVs and trash to crouch among them in the meantime, reporting, “It’s okay, Prince, nothing’s damaged.”

Still Laharl scowled in blame, not that it bothered Valvatorez at all who began, “I hope that includes the property you stole last night. What are you collecting medical supplies for?”

“None of your business!”

“As my friend’s appropriated possessions are among all this,” Probably, Valvatorez assessed as he looked around the indoor dump in disgust, “it most certainly _is_ my business- My word, even for rough living this place is beyond sordid.” He rubbed his sole against the floor in an attempt to dislodge the trash stuck to it, though in its state it put as much dirt on as it took off.

“It’s fine,” Laharl sniffed haughtily.

“It’s totally revolting, Prince,” Etna disagreed, coming up to his side. “I keep telling you, we need to find somewhere more sanitary for... you know,” she alluded.

Laharl’s scowl deepened.“Hrmm...” Valvatorez raised a curious eyebrow at what it could be that Laharl accepted but didn’t want to admit. “Hey, you.”

“Yes?” Valvatorez answered.

“Find us somewhere better to live and I’ll make you my vassal.”

That prompted a good chuckle. “Your vassal? An interesting, if foolish, proposal.”

“‘Foolish’?! Are you too thick-headed to know who you’re speaking to? I’m Laharl Krichevskoy!” Laharl folded his arms, standing proud at his pathetically small height. “One day all the streets of the netherworld will belong to me!”

“Oh, you’re ‘King’ Krichevskoy’s son?” Valvatorez was bemused.

“If you know who I am, you ought to be cowering in fear right now, bastard!”

Etna leant in, casting nervous looks at Valvatorez, “Uh, Prince, I’m pretty sure this guy is-”

“Well?” Laharl demanded of their visitor. “Are you going to accept my generous offer, or not?”

“I counter-offer!” Valvatorez threw his loose coat out like a cape with one hand. “Return what you stole from my friend and I will find you a better place to live. ‘King’ Krichevskoy’s son oughtn’t to be reduced to living in such filth.”

“On that we agree!” Looking around the dump he called his kingdom currently, Laharl did indeed seem to be wavering towards that counter-offer.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Valvatorez asked. “I thought Krichevskoy had a house.”

Laharl’s fists balled up, his scowl returning. “We did. But when that idiot choked, all the ungrateful nobodies he’d been keeping down rioted and wrecked it.”

“Laharl still owns it, you know, inheritance-wise,” Etna offered more despondently. “But we didn’t want to get taken into care so...”

Valvatorez nodded. “Are you injured from the attack? Is that what you took the medical supplies for?” Both kids bit their lips, expressions turning aside guardedly. “My friend is a nurse who treats anyone regardless of their situation. I’m sure she would provide whatever treatment you need only too willingly, if you were to return what you stole.”

Laharl frowned, while Etna only looked to Laharl deferentially. He eventually shoved his hands in his shorts pockets, kicking at trash on the filthy floor. “The supplies aren’t for us. They’re for... my sister.” He tutted, striding away. When followed, around a large pile of discarded TVs and sofas a medical bad came into view, if a very dilapidated one with chunks eaten into the stuffing and broken edges. “She was born with some medical condition that meant mom died giving birth to her, and she’s spent her whole childhood stuck in that stupid children’s hospital uptown. She hates it when she’s stuck there alone.”

“So you’ve been gathering medical supplies to look after her here instead,” Valvatorez put together, looking over boxes of bandages, thermometers and stethoscopes.

“That’s also why I need more vassals, to take my rightful place as overlord of these netherworld streets as soon as possible,” he said resolutely. “I need to make them safe for Sicily, and to make sure I can get her everything she wants.”

“But, Prince, you hate all the girly stuff she wants,” Etna teased.

“Shut up! It’s the principle – If my sister wants it, then every piece of gutter trash in this city should bend over backwards to get it for her,” Laharl huffed, seating himself forcefully on the medical bed and knocking a few more chunks of padding loose.

“I have to say,” Valvatorez agreed, “I wouldn’t mind a little more order being brought to these streets; the resultant fighting since the death of your father has led to far more work for my friend. Not to mention all of the systemic factors involved in one’s health that are directly impacted by the lack of funding the city council assigns to what should be their top priority – I mean, really! Who is running this city?!”

Impressive as the rapidly histrionic escalation had been, “Who is this crazy guy?” Laharl had to ask.

“I kept trying to tell you, Prince,” Etna said; “I’m pretty sure this is Valvatorez.”

“Wait, THE Valvatorez? As in the Street Tyrant?” Laharl assessed their dramatic visitor. “But he’s such a pipsqueak.”

“Spoke the pot to the kettle,” Valvatorez parried. “I, am indeed the Street Tyrant known as Valvatorez! Although I never met your father, I had a great deal of respect for ‘King’ Krichevskoy, as well as having sympathy for your situation. Therefore, my offer from before still stands.”

“Hmhm, I like the idea of making the Street Tyrant my vassal,” Laharl said.

“I think we should take him up on _his_ offer, Prince,” Etna advised. “If his friend’s a nurse maybe she can help us work out what we actually need, instead of all this random junk we stole. Plus I really just want to get somewhere with a working shower – I’m sick of ‘showering’ using that outside hose at the garage down the street!”

“Well, I suppose having a nurse vassal would be useful...” Looking around, Laharl nodded and hopped down to a bag slung against old orange crates near the foot of the bed. He tossed it at Valvatorez, “Here. This is what we stole. Now take us to your nurse friend.”

After a quick assessment that it was indeed all of the stolen goods, “Very well,” Valvatorez led the way.

~DOOD~

“One lemonade for Etna,” Artina served onto the repurposed office desk between them, “and one coffee for Laharl.”

“Are you seriously going to drink that, Prince?” Etna eyed up his plain coffee as she took the first sips from her curly straw.

“Coffee is what adults drink – I’m not afraid of it!” Yet he was staring into his cup awfully hesitantly. “I’m just... waiting for it to cool.”

“Riiight.”

“Thank you for returning my supplies to me,” Artina began, taking her seat opposite with tea.

“They shouldn’t have stolen them in the first place...” Valvatorez muttered from his seat beside her, lounging back with his own tea.

Artina merely shook her head at him. “So, your sister is being treated in the children’s hospital uptown?”

“That’s right,” Laharl said, still ‘waiting for his coffee to cool’. “I want to know what we need to take care of her here instead.”

“Many patients do benefit from being in a more comfortable home environment with their family,” Artina agreed. “Does your sister want to be cared for at home by you?”

“Of course she does!” Laharl said, summoning a deep breath and forcing the first drink of coffee into his mouth. “Holy crap! That’s-!”

While he coughed and spluttered, and Valvatorez smirked, Etna took over, “We haven’t been able to see her since Laharl’s father died. Our friend Flonne has been looking in on her though, so we know she’s okay.”

“Flonne?” Artina perked up. “Would that be Flonne Lamington?”

“Yeah. You know her?”

“Yes, very well actually!” Artina enthused. “She does such great charity work for this city! I always help collect donations for her fundraisers, like her latest one to purchase a new fleet of ambulances for the main hospital. Although,” she had to admit, “I’m not so sure about the giant robot design she picked for them...”

“Hey, everyone gets right out of the way when they see a Flonzor Ambulance X hurtling down the street towards them,” Etna mentioned with a grin.

After a particularly good splutter, “S-So, can you help us or not?” Laharl demanded, wiping his mouth off on the back of his hand.

“Well, that depends a lot on what your sister’s condition is.”

“Uhh...”

Etna rolled her eyes. “It’s got some really long and complicated name. Even I can’t remember how to pronounce it, but I learnt how to write it down for things like this.” She jotted quickly on a nearby newspaper edge, passing it across to Artina.

Whatever the name was seemed to defeat even Artina’s medical training for a moment, before her face slowly fell. “This... I’m afraid this isn’t a condition anyone could care for a child with outside of a proper hospital.”

“Don’t give me that crap,” Laharl demanded. “Whatever equipment they’ve got, we’ll get it too and then we can look after her.”

Setting the newspaper back down gently, “Your sister has episodes where she needs to be treated in an Intensive Care Unit, doesn’t she?”

“Well... Now and then,” he admitted. “Less now than when she was younger.”

“Yeah, it’s been months since the last one,” Etna backed up.

Artina shook her head. “At her age she wouldn’t last the journey time to get her there if she was being cared for at home, and you simply couldn’t set up everything that would be required for an ICU at home. It’ll be different when she’s older and her body is stronger – How old did you say she was?”

“She’s 9,” Laharl chewed on. “How much older would she need to be?”

“It really depends on the individual patient,” Artina said. “But perhaps in a few years, if she’s strong.”

“She’s really strong,” he insisted. “She’s always super annoying and cheerful every time I go – She couldn’t be that annoying if she wasn’t super healthy!”

Artina laughed, but softened again. “Laharl, you wouldn’t want to risk what might happen if she was taken home too early and had a bad episode, would you?” He looked away, glaring at his banished coffee. “You might be able to start having her home for short visits, a night or two here and there, in a year or so if the doctors say she’s doing well. But she needs to stay where she is for now.”

“...Damn it,” he accepted almost silently.

“We’ll be able to care for her then?” Etna checked though.

“Yes, you’d be able to learn the basic care duties she’d need,” Artina said. “But it’s a lot to ask of children your age – The doctors may not trust you would be able to take care of her adequately, and legally they couldn’t entrust her to you anyway without an adult to take care of you all.”

“We’re able to look after ourselves, and we’d be able to look after her too, whatever those idiots think!” he objected.

“‘Look after yourselves’ – How does that explain the dump I found you squatting in?” Valvatorez questioned, sipping at his tea as he lounged back really quite unconcerned with all this.

“That was- We were focusing on getting medical supplies for Sicily,” Laharl defended. “Fine then!” he declared more dramatically. “One year from now we’ll be taking care of ourselves so well, in a proper house with an adult to serve us and everything, that those idiot doctors will have to agree Sicily can come stay with us!”

“Visit us,” Etna tried to correct him.

“And when I’m older,” Laharl continued, standing with legs wide and folded arms, “I’ll run this whole netherworld and be able to hire all the trained doctors and equipment she needs! This I vow, as Laharl Krichevskoy!”

“Umm...” Artina cocked her head slightly, unsure how amused she could get away with being.

Valvatorez though, “...This is what you promise, is it?” he asked, pausing in his indifferent tea-sipping.

“Indeed!”

“Your sister will be counting on you – Do you accept the responsibility of what it would mean to her were you unable to fulfil your word?”

“I vowed it on my reputation and name as Laharl Krichevskoy – Which part of that don’t you understand?!”

His face bowing into shadow, the dark chuckling that begun couldn’t help but even make Artina lean away slightly. “Very well!” Valvatorez stood up to declare as well, the tea that jumped up from his cup with the motion caught deftly back in the same cup with only a few drops spilled. “In that case I shall be your instructor in the independence and skills you will require!”

“Oh, so you _do_ want to be my vassal after all,” Laharl perked up warmly. “I accept your offer, Street Tyrant – From henceforth you are my vassal!”

Etna stared, face flattening into confused incredulity. “What language are they speaking?” she asked Artina.

“I don’t know,” Artina admitted in great amusement. “But I’m glad Mr. Tyrant has found a friend who speaks his special language.”

“He is not my ‘friend’,” Valvatorez scorned, tutting. “He will be my student, and I his instructor.” She shook her head fondly, allowing him to please himself. “And you, Lass?” he now asked of Etna. “What will you do?”

“Me?” Etna just sort of shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just a street kid the King picked up; he’s the only one who ever saw any worth in me. Really, I’ll just go anywhere I can live now.”

“You’re going to let everyone seeing no worth in you as reason to prove them right?” Valvatorez asked.

“Hey, that’s not what I-!” She bit her lip, frowning at him before turning away. “Tch... I _want_ to prove them all wrong, but it’s not so easy, y’know?” When she scowled at him again, “Can I come with you and the Prince?”

Valvatorez put one hand on a sassy hip. “I don’t know. Can you?”

Growling slightly, “I’m coming with you two, whether you like it or not!” she stood up as well, slamming her empty lemonade glass down on the table.

“Good,” Valvatorez simply nodded.

Then Artina spoke up, “Where are you all going?” halting the moment.

“...Ah,” Valvatorez realised, taking his chin in hand to consider. “I still haven’t found anywhere to go myself.”

“Oh great,” Etna sassed, falling back into her seat.

“I’m working on it!” Valvatorez insisted.

“You’re all welcome to stay here in the meantime,” Artina assured them, starting to collect up the finished drinks. “If we need extra room for patients, I’m sure Mr. Tyrant wouldn’t mind sharing my bedroom upstairs.”

Valvatorez stammered and flustered excessively as Laharl recoiled. “Lovey-dovey couples like you are disgusting!”

“We are _not_ a c-couple!” Valvatorez wanted to make clear, ignoring Etna’s snickering.

“Don’t worry, I’m only teasing Mr. Tyrant,” Artina assured Laharl as she collected his cooled coffee. “Didn’t you like the coffee, Little Prince?”

“No! You obviously made it wrong!” he insisted. “A-And don’t call me that!” Having apparently already learnt how to become easily flustered by her from their instructor, “Get on with finding us a place to live already!” he commanded his new ‘vassal’. “I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to,” Laharl added, eyeing up Artina’s body warily.

As Valvatorez started thinking again, “Um,” Etna spoke up, “I think I might know a place, actually.”

~DOOD~

“It’s a dump!” Laharl declared, kicking trash away that had dared come too close to his majestic feet.

“Jeez,” Etna agreed, picking her way around the soggy cardboard strewn over the stone flags of the yard, “I thought the King was doing this joint up.”

“What is this place?” Valvatorez asked, trying to see past the graffiti and broken windows to what this large, plain shoe box of a building ought to be.

“It’s a homeless shelter,” Etna explained. “Or it used to be, but then it fell into disrepair and got shut down. He bought it to do back up and reopen it.”

“Soft-hearted fool...” Laharl scorned.

“Although he did want to help the homeless people around here, he actually bought it to stop this whole area being redeveloped.”

“Redeveloped?” Valvatorez looked around the renownedly dilapidated and derelict streets, most buildings abandoned to squatters without even token resistance. “But of course – Practically no one lives in this area of the netherworld, so there’d be no one to object to its redevelopment.”

“Exactly, that’s Carter’s whole plan; he wants to turn this area into midtown suburbs and a shopping district.”

“No bastard is going to turn my netherworld into some gentrified shopping mall!” Laharl objected, kicking a nearby fast food wrapper that exploded into mouldy bread and lettuce against the building wall.

“Wow, that’s a big word for you, Prince!”

“Shut up and tell me what we do to stop this bastard stealing my netherworld!”

“That’s exactly why your father bought this place,” Etna gestured again at the trashed shell of the building. “He couldn’t buy the whole area up but this place is central to it, and if it was being used to help rejuvenate the area things were bound to rule in his favour instead of Carter’s.”

“I see... Not bad, old man,” Laharl actually commended.

“Well, that likely explains the state this place is in,” Valvatorez said, walking closer to the shapeless, generic graffiti on the walls. “I would imagine this Carter hired some goons to rough the place up after Laharl’s father died to ensure his redevelopment plans would be approved.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something he’d do,” she admitted.

Valvatorez turned back to her. “You seem to know quite a lot about this. You wouldn’t happen to know the deadline for the approval or rejection of the redevelopment, would you?”

“Uhh... I think I remember him saying something about it being ‘on course for the end of next month’,” she offered. “But that was last month, before he died. So I think it’s the end of this month.”

“The end of the month?!” Valvatorez staggered slightly. “That’s the end of this week!”

“Damn it!” Laharl also shouted, punching the air in lieu of having anything better. “Who is this Carter bastard? Can we go kill him?”

Etna shrugged, and the kids could only look to their instructor.

Valvatorez was stood back slightly, considering the building over once again. He also considered the immense amount of littered trash around its broken-fenced yard, not to mention whatever had been dumped inside and was openly poking through the busted windows in some place. “...I believe,” he finally declared, “I may have a better solution to all this corruption.”

~DOOD~

“I’m so whacked!” Etna complained, sagging forward for extra bonus drama on the cake. “I can’t believe you’re making us go out again after working us like dogs all day!”

“And getting that nurse lady to jab us with needles...” Laharl grumbled too.

“Do you want to contract tetanus?” Valvatorez asked over his shoulder to the two children.

“I don’t want to be cleaning up rusty metal I could get it from in the first place!” He glared at Valvatorez’s silent back. “I still say we should just kill this Carter bastard...”

“Same...” Etna sighed wearily. “How do you even know these runaways will be out here? They could be anywhere in the city by now.”

“The report Artina received saw the two girls entering a train station which terminates at the turnaround ahead,” Valvatorez said. “If they were running from their group home they will have travelled as far as possible in flight.”

“You don’t know that.”

He half-glanced back briefly. “One doesn’t survive long on these streets without attaining a good grasp of human psychology, particularly that of humans reduced to their most primal instincts.”

While Laharl scratched his head in confusion, “Okay,” Etna admitted, “but I still don’t get how we’re gonna ever find them even if they did get off here.”

Valvatorez didn’t answer, leaving the kids to simply groan and continue dragging their tired, grubby shoes after him.

They halted outside the silent train station archway, one late-night departure trundling away down the distant tracks. Here Valvatorez looked around between the path they had come along, a hotel and apartment-lined street, and the other leading away towards construction site barriers and obscuring hedges. It was that second path he took, “This way,” leading them on.

At the path’s next junction, this time they looked at a road that led to business premises and the parking lot of a shopping centre, and another that ran off with nothing but streetlights and poorly-maintained hedges. Again, “Come,” they took the second path.

“Okay,” Laharl finally demanded after another five minutes walking down the destination-less road, only a couple of cars passing them all the while, “where the hell are we going?”

“Where not many other people do,” Valvatorez answered simply. “I don’t believe it’ll be long now.”

The kids made all the best noises of protest they knew as he dragged them on, something he seemed neither fazed nor moved by.

Valvatorez only silenced them when they approached a road bridge ahead, currently on the high road that crossed a small, ill-kept linking street below. The kids were curious enough to obey, following his slower pace down the rubble steps that let pedestrians descend to the lower road.

Around the brick corner of the bridge, hiding between two of the concrete supporting pillars, were a couple of teenage girls huddled up in nothing but shirts and shorts, shivering in the late summer night.

The girls startled, but their wariness made them simply get to their feet rather than attempt to run.

“Wh-Who are you?” The one with a bushy ponytail of grey hair took a martial arts stance in front of the other, her soft voice doing its passable best to sound aggressive.

“We’re not here on behalf of your group home,” Valvatorez took the lead. “However, they are searching for you.” The girl in front now ducked her head slightly, yellow eyes fixing him cautiously. “I am Valvatorez!” he thought to introduce in an effort to be calming, even if his usual dramatics rather ruined the intent. “My friend is a nurse, and she received a report about the two of you. Since I seem to have developed a habit of assisting children left to the streets,” he glanced round briefly at the other two behind him, “I thought you might desire our assistance.”

The girl in front was still up on the balls of her feet, ready for a fight, but did ask, “Oh, like a homeless charity?”

“Yes, something of that ilk,” he supposed for the first time, playing with the sound of it. “In any case, there is no need for you to come with us; I can understand you have no reason to trust us at present. But if we can assist you in getting any food or medical treatment, for example, we would do that if you prefer.”

Both girls remained nervously still, almost like small animals waiting for their safe chance to run.

“You have run from your home,” Valvatorez continued in that case; “what is your plan now? Do you intend to live on the streets? I presume you have no family to go to if you were already in social care.”

Shame put the two girls into a more defensive posture, uncertainty causing them to glance at each other briefly but without coming up with any answers.

“Hey,” Etna stepped forward towards them, “that bell,” she indicated on the closer girl’s chest. “You’re a daughter of the Felynn gang, aren’t you?”

The girl put her hands around the bell protectively, “Oh! Y-Yes, I am. We were thinking about trying to find them, but they’ve all gone into hiding after the raids earlier this year. That’s when my mother...”

“Prison?” Valvatorez guessed from the girl’s downcast expression. And she nodded. “Have they allowed you to visit her?”

“N-No,” she said. “All the places I’ve been sent to, they said I wasn’t allowed, that it’d be a bad influence on me...”

“Hey,” Laharl loudly whispered to Etna, “which one are the Felynn gang again?”

“They’re that all-female gang with cat-eared hoods. If the gang members have kids, once they’re old enough to say what their gender is the girls are kept while other genders are sent away to live with their fathers.”

“Yes, I don’t know who my father is,” the girl answered. “I-I’m Rutile, by the way. Um... You really won’t send us back to the home, or tell them where we are, Mr. Valvatorez?”

“No, rest assured,” he said. “From what the report said, it doesn’t seem it was a particularly well-suited environment for the two of you.”

“Oh. No. That... That was my fault...” Rutile said awkwardly. “After I realised I had accidentally broken that other girl’s arm I was scared they’d send me back to a detention centre again, so...”

“Detention centre?” Valvatorez questioned.

“Um, yes. Early on they weren’t sure what to do with me, so because of my mother they sent me to...”

His face hardened. “Why did you break that girl’s arm? What did she do to you?”

“I-I...” Rutile stammered to a surprised halt, processing the second question. “She... She was being mean to Pleinair,” she indicated the blue-haired girl stood silently behind her. “They’re always mean to us, because of my mother and because Pleinair has difficulty talking to others. Pleinair is the only one who’s been nice to me this whole time, so I won’t let people bully her!”

Pleinair pulled her folded arms up slightly, the white bunny in them flopping as she murmured something into the back of its head.

Rutile had turned to listen, nodding. “Wh-What would happen if we came with you, Mr. Valvatorez?”

“Ah, well, we’re still working on getting a place of our own-”

“Yeah, with our slave labour,” Etna butted in.

He only frowned at her. “But there are enough beds you could come stay at the clinic we’re currently residing at. Our new residence is due to be completed at the end of the week, however due to our rather limited workforce,” Both of whom were pouting behind him, “we would value all the assistance we can muster.”

“Oh, are you fixing it up?” Rutile perked up. “I-I love to help with things like that!” She turned round as Pleinair said something quietly behind her, agreeing, “It’d be just like _Animal Crossing_!”

“A really grimy, back-breaking version filled with hazardous waste, yeah,” Etna muttered.

“Once we have the place habitable we’ll certainly have bedrooms for the two of you,” Valvatorez assured them. “Then we can see about arranging visits to see your mother.”

Rutile blinked. “You’ll... You’ll let me see my mother?”

“Of course.”

Her whole body vibrated with a quiver of joy. “I-I’m certain I’ll be a hassle to you all,” Rutile confessed, bowing her head forward, “but if you really wouldn’t mind...”

“And you, Pleinair?” Valvatorez asked.

She looked to Rutile, and then nodded silently.

“How come she doesn’t speak?” Laharl asked carelessly, earning an elbow jab from Etna.

“I-I don’t know,” Rutile said. “None of the staff even knew about her family or history.”

“That’s not a problem,” Valvatorez assured, addressing Pleinair again. “When we have settled, would you care to look into any alternative or augmented forms of communication?”

She stepped a little closer to speak her small answer from behind the rabbit’s head. “Usagi...”

“You wish for Usagi to speak for you?”

She nodded, and Usagi nodded with her.

“Very well.”

“You really don’t mind?” Rutile asked in surprise. “It’s just, all the other homes and places we’ve been sent to have always tried to get her to speak normally.”

“So long as she understands others cannot comprehend sentiments she does not communicate, her method of communication is her choice to make.” Sweeping his coat up dramatically, “Now come! The night is growing cold, and this is no place for lone children.”

“R-Right!” Rutile hurried after him, Pleinair following without the same nerves. “Oh, Mr. Valvatorez! If you help homeless children you should probably know there are lots in the area south of here.”

“Lots?”

“Yes. We ran into them when we were trying to find a bathroom earlier.” Behind her, Pleinair tightened her arms around Usagi as Rutile also grew somewhat nervous. “When they realised that we were homeless they tried to make us go with them, quite forcefully, saying they were also ‘lost’. They scared us though, so we ran away.”

“Children forcibly recruiting others from the streets...?” He frowned, his dark expression considering things beyond the comprehension of his gaggle of following kids. They all looked to each other with shrugs, only able to trail along behind. “Well, there’s no need to concern yourselves with them now. We’ll look after you from here on.”

Tucking up Usagi beneath her chin, “Happy...” Pleinair walked a little bit closed behind him.

~DOOD~

“Right, children!” Valvatorez declared atop a small crate that only emphasised his lacking height. “This morning we shall be having a lesson on the correct handling of hazardous waste. This afternoon, we will then learn home repair and maintenance.”

“R-Right!” Rutile acknowledged, forming fists of readiness.

Pleinair stared on blankly, Usagi doing the same from her folded arms.

Laharl and Etna though, “Lesson? What is this crap?”

“Yeah, no one said anything about lessons.”

Valvatorez folded his arms, patiently keeping to a simple frown. “As your newly-authorised guardian, it is now my legal responsibility to see that you all receive an adequate education-”

“Wait, there’s no way you got the paperwork to become our guardians processed already,” Etna interjected. “It took months when the King adopted me.”

Valvatorez chuckled ominously. “Let us just say I have some old acquaintances in the right places for these things.” While they kids were unsure quite what to make of that, he continued, “As homeschooling can be considered a sufficient fulfilment of that legal requirement, we will hence be having these lessons today as part of your homeschooling curriculum.”

“Oh, I see,” Laharl finally cottoned on. “Really you’re just gonna make us fix up this dump again, but by calling it ‘lessons’ you can legally get away with it – Not bad.”

“If you wish to put it in such crude terms, yes,” Valvatorez said as he stepped down from his crate. “Now, we still need to remove the remaining rubbish from the kitchen, but we’ll have to allow it a chance to air out before we can properly clean it tomorrow. In the meantime we’ll be fixing up the broken sections of the yard fence to ensure our efforts cannot be undone overnight.” He clapped his hands, signalling for them to begin by following him.

The sight of the two feet of garbage dumped over the floor of the spacious kitchen was enough to make Laharl and Etna groan already, knowing what was coming. Valvatorez set them to work bagging all the smaller trash on the counters and cupboards, “And setting fire to the trash does _not_ count as removing it, need I remind you!” before turning to the two new girls. “Now, will you both assist me in carrying out the larger items from the floor?”

“Yes, Mr. Valvatorez!” Rutile set right to work with the upmost earnestness, gloves on and straight over to the broken standing lamps and fans stacked on top of the pile.

Pleinair was looking down at Usagi in her arms though. She lifted his little arms, but they weren’t going to be able to lift much garbage for removal at their size.

“You should keep Usagi safe from all the hazardous items we’ll be handling today,” Valvatorez said.

She nodded.

“Do you want to set him aside someplace, or...?”

He watched her lift Usagi up, taking him behind her head to attempt to tuck into the back of her shirt. Intervening gently, Valvatorez helped Usagi find a comfortable and tight position he wouldn’t slip from where he could remain with her at all times.

Pleinair moved her head around, checking, before she made an OK sign and pulled out her gloves to put on.

“Excellent.” Gesturing, she followed his instruction to come grab one end of a water-damaged coffee table sprawled on its side between two ovens.

“This junk is super weird,” Etna commented as she went to throw her first full bag of trash onto the disposal pile outside. “It’s all furniture and other household stuff.”

“Houses often need to be cleared, especially in this area of town,” Valvatorez said. “The proper disposal of waste is a problem humanity has faced since ancient times, and it continues to this day.”

“What about landfills and tips? Isn’t that where this stuff is meant to go?”

“Ah, but one must pay for the transportation to those places, all housed in locations far from civilisation for obvious reasons. Not only that but there’s also often a fee involved for private businesses and individuals.”

“They should just incinerate it all,” Laharl decided as he hurled his first two bags out the door onto the pile.

“Hmhm, not all waste can be disposed of via your preferred method, Laharl,” Valvatorez said. “Although the incineration of waste can now be used to produce renewable energy, with the right equipment.”

“In that case we oughta get them to pay us for all this crap then, if they can make electricity out of it.”

As Valvatorez ushered them to stop scheming and get back to cleaning, “Um, Mr. Valvatorez?” Rutile interrupted. “Should we put electrical items in a separate pile?”

“Ah, yes, ideally- My word!” He finally saw the girl, or what was visible of her behind the massive flat-screen TV she was carrying. “How are you able to carry something that size all by yourself?!”

With only a little effort, Rutile was even able to carefully set it down a few feet from the rest of the waste, shards of glass tinkling from its broken screen to the ground. “O-Oh, it’s nothing! My mother used to do muscle training with the rest of the gang, and I liked to join in. I know it’s not very a-appropriate for a young girl but-”

“Your body is your own,” Valvatorez said. “Don’t let them tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with it – If you want to have massive, rock-hard muscles, then you go ahead and have massive, rock-hand muscles!”

“I-I don’t quite want- Um, yes, Mr. Valvatorez!” She bowed to him. “Thank you!”

He nodded, turning back to the home that still needed a lot more cleaning.

~DOOD~

“Right this way, Council Warden Axel,” Valvatorez led the way through the open gates for Axel and his entourage.

Axel whistled appreciably, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun. “Hey-hey, not bad! This place looked like a total dump in the photos but this isn’t half bad at all.”

“I-It’s not-!” The bald man following Axel began to splutter. “There’s still spray paint on the front door! And big stains all over this yard!”

“Eh, they can paint over that,” Axel shrugged lackadaisically. “So, you want my permission to turn this place into, like, one of those care home thingies for orphaned kids?”

“Yes!” Valvatorez stood before the building, throwing out his ragged, over-sized coat. “I intend to provide a safe and supportive home for minors abandoned to these downtown streets, as well as a reformative educational program suitable for juvenile delinquents or the children of criminals and gang members to prevent them from going the way of their parents. The strict but caring curriculum I will provide may not suit every child, and I can only take in so many, but I will welcome those with the potential to thrive in this environment, however difficult they may be – Those with the potential of sardines!” Again he punctuated his dramatic declaration with a flaring of his coat. “Your secretary should have all the details in the paperwork I submitted,” he did add more formally though.

Axel looked to his short, pink-clad secretary who nodded it was all in order. “Nice. Things with kids make great photo opportunities,” he considered. “And kids are great themselves – They love me!”

Stood over closer to the building, “Who the hell is this posturing buffoon? And what the hell is up with his eyebrows?” Laharl scorned.

Etna kicked him in the shin. “Shut up, Prince. He’s an idiot, but he’s our ticket to keeping the netherworld under our control.”

“ _My_ control, you mean.”

“Uh, yeah,” Etna pretended.

“He can’t simply be allowed to start a home for abandoned children!” the bald man stepped forward beside Axel, gesturing at Valvatorez. “Who is he?! What are his qualifications?! There’s no way he can have completed all the necessary bureaucracy for this!”

“Chill, Carter,” Axel waved him down. “Valvatorez is a decent guy-”

“‘Valvatorez’?! The Street Tyrant Valvatorez?!” Carter spluttered. “You’re going to allow someone like that to care for children?!”

“Hey, Valvatorez is a bro,” Axel laid down calmly. “He got this place cleaned up, and those kids over there wanted him to be their legal guardian,” He jacked a thumb at the four children waiting politely or less so over by the building, “so he obviously knows what he’s doing. I say let him.” Valvatorez nodded at such sage idiocy.

Carter pressed forward again. “But what about the redevelopment plans?! This area was to be at the very centre of them – You surely can’t be planning to scrap such important plans!”

“‘Important’?!” Laharl squawked from afar, before, “Ow!” being kicked to keep quiet again.

“Oh, was that scheduled for round here?” Axel scratched lazily at his cheek, provoking a gritting of teeth from Carter. “Eh, it didn’t have that much public support or anything. No big deal.”

“But-!”

“‘sides,” Axel continued, “the Mayor’s behind this initiative of Valvatorez’s – He told me personally.” He preened slightly, flashing a grin. “So I guess he also wants to scrap that whole redevelopment idea.”

“What?!” Carter’s large forehead was turning a nice shade of red above his furrowed brows. “The Mayor wouldn’t scrap my plans, that wasn’t part of the agreement-!”

“‘Agreement’?” Valvatorez picked up on, sharp gaze focused on Carter.

The other man had no problem returning it. “I don’t know what underhanded trick you pulled-”

“Trick? I now have official responsibility and decision-making power over this property as the legal guardian of its owner Laharl,” Valvatorez indicated the boy. “All property owners in the redevelopment area have a right to consultation with local officials, and I merely used mine to put across my plans for the building. I cannot be held responsible if the Mayor considered my plans more persuasive than yours, Carter.” He smiled a little too gladly.

Carter stalked up to him, close enough to privately spit, “I’ll get you for this, Valvatorez. And if you have the Mayor’s ear so amiably, you should tell him to remember his position.”

Valvatorez regarded him darkly but without losing the smile, simply watching as Carter turned and stormed away.

“Whatever, don’t mind him,” Axel said. “He’s always such a grumpypants. Really kills meetings when I’m just trying to vibe, y’know?”

“Frankly, and quite gladly, I have no idea about you ‘vibing’, Warden Axel,” Valvatorez said, covering his face with one hand. “But if we’re in agreement then, and everything’s in order...”

Axel turned to his secretary once again. “Everything is signed and accounted for, Mr. Axel, mew. As per the Mayor’s request, I’ve made the necessary space in the budget to provide the funding, mew.”

“Sweet. In that case I’ve gotta go get ready for my next press conference, Valvatorez. Good luck and, uh, all that.” He waved lazily in their direction, already on his way to important things. “Let’s roll, Pink.”

Valvatorez sighed, finally letting a little of the tension out of his shoulders.

“So...” The kids had walked up behind him, Etna taking the lead, “we won? Carter’s totally foiled?”

“Yes. With both Axel and the Mayor behind us he won’t be able to do a thing.”

“You’re seriously friends with that Axel idiot?” Laharl asked, staring at the gaudy, white car with black tiger stripes rolling away down the street.

“Sadly,” Valvatorez admitted. “But he has his uses.”

“So this is really our home now?” Rutile asked. “We get to stay here with you?”

“Indeed, this is our home now, children!” Valvatorez declared to them, throwing his arms out to bask in its glory.

“It’s still a dump,” Laharl said.

“And it still smells like garbage,” Etna added.

“Oh, shush.”

“Hungry...” Pleinair said from behind Usagi.

“All right, time to eat,” Valvatorez agreed, beginning to chuckle. “I made sure to buy lots of cans of sardines, so we can have a feast of Clupeidae goodness tonight to celebrate!”

“Um, not that sardines aren’t nice and all, Mr. Valvatorez, but it might be nice to have something else for a change,” Rutile suggested meekly.

“Seriously...” Etna agreed with a groan.

“I’m really starting to wonder if this was such a good idea after all...” Laharl grumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I freaking love this AU so much, not sorry. I’ve got two more chapters on the way of this scale, so we’re talking months probably between uploads, but do subscribe so you don’t miss them. The next one focuses on the Disgaea 5 cast, and a plotline that was briefly hinted at towards the end of this one, but that’s all I’m going to say for now!


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